


Coming Home

by JWade



Series: Jericho [2]
Category: Jericho (US 2006)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-25 08:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 38,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15637113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWade/pseuds/JWade
Summary: It's been months that Jake and Hawkins have been stuck in Texas and they are both rather anxious to get home to Jericho. They find things much changed from when they left though.Technically a sequel, but could be read as a standalone story as well, taking place after the show.





	1. Chapter 1

Jake was pacing their apartment in Texas again as Hawkins watched, torn between frustration and amusement. “Are you /trying/ to wear a hole in the floor.”

“I need to get home,” Jake said for the hundredth time. 

“Then what’s stopping you?” Hawkins said pointedly. He’d avoided this subject for a while, but he was recovered enough to travel, now. 

Jake looked at him incredulously. “The Texan militia. Border patrol. Our ‘body guards’. Take your pick.” They had been put up in a diplomatic apartment and well taken care of, but the Texans wouldn’t let them back across the border. Said it was too dangerous with the war going on. 

Hawkins just looked at him evenly. “And?” 

“And? And what? There is no and,” Jake said annoyed.

Hawkins let out a slight chuckle. “Listen to me Jake. Every security system has a hole. This one is like swiss cheese if you know what you’re doing.” 

Jake stopped pacing and looked appraisingly at Hawkins. “And you know what you’re doing,” it dawned on him. “Can you get me back across the border?” 

Hawkins shook his head. “No, Jake. I /will/ get /us/ back across the border.” 

Jake looked at him like he was an alien. “No. No way. You’re just off being injured and you’re probably the most wanted person in the entire Allied States right now. At least I’m still mostly anonymous.”

“Jake, this is not a debate. I am going back. With or without you. My family is still in Jericho. My /home/ is in Jericho,” he said clearly. 

“So, what. You just waltz back into town and wait for someone to notice you?” 

“No. I figure I’ll head back and hide out for a while and see what kind of work that plastic surgeon of yours can do. A new name is a breeze. I can be Darcy’s cousin as far as the rest of the town is concerned. There are still holes to figure out, but that’s the basic plan. Now what about you? Last we knew, Beck was after your head and that of your Rangers.” 

That was exactly why Jake had to get back. Emily was on that list. And Bill. He had to know they were okay. He had to help them if they weren’t. He had to kill someone if they were dead. Either way he had to be back. There was still room for hope though. “I’m hoping it’s all blown over by now. I figure I’ll do the same as you. Hide out and try to make contact while I see how things are. I can get to Emily’s house unseen. I know every inch of that town like the back of my hand.”

Hawkins raised an eyebrow. “Emily huh?” he asked with a smirk. 

“What?” Jake asked defensively. 

“You know, I’ve been in this game a long time, Jake. I’m trained to read people. To know when they’re lying, even to themselves. Now normally, in this case, I wouldn’t care. It’s not my business, but I know you, Jake. You don’t want to hurt that girl any more than you already have, so you have got to start figuring yourself out before you get any deeper.”

Jake went pale and looked away. He knew exactly what Hawkins meant. He was already starting to figure it out for himself, and he knew that he was right. He had known when he had gotten involved again that it was a bad idea. That it would never work. He had dodged that bullet once, but once Roger was gone again, and after his father had died…he had needed her. And then it was easier to just go along with it. But he couldn’t leave her like this either. Waiting and wondering if he was dead. If he was coming back at all. “I know,” he said quietly. “But I still need to get back.”

Hawkins nodded. “Good enough. Now here’s what we’re gonna do,” he began to lay out a plan, with Jake’s input. They would need to wait for their opportunity two days later. Most of the leadership of Texas would be at a conference with the leadership of Columbus, discussing the war. It was the easiest time to get out. He knew how these people worked. When their initial plans failed, they would wait for orders on how to proceed. Those orders would be delayed due to the conference, giving them time to slip by unnoticed. 

When the time came, he and Jake easily knocked their two bodyguards unconscious and slipped out the back door of the building during the security shift change and managed to steal a car with diplomatic plates. Most of the people who used the lot away, so it would be a while before it was noticed and when it was, they could ditch it and find something else. It took them four hours to reach the border and another hour of watching and waiting until they got a chance to slip through between patrols. Crossing by vehicle would be all but impossible, but on foot was much more manageable. 

They put as much distance between them and the border as they could as fast as they could. They walked all night and most of the morning before Jake asked, “So now what? We can’t walk all the way to Kansas, can we?”

Hawkins shook his head. “Jake, please tell me you don’t think I’d bring us this far without a plan to get us the rest of the way.”

“Okay…well…wanna let me in on this plan, then?” Jake asked impatiently. 

“About two more hours walk is a safe house. Chavez set it up once he realized that Texas was our key. We get there and get supplies, guns, food, etc. Then we take one of the trucks there and we’re home free. Well, not exactly home free. We’re still wanted men and there’s still a war going on, but you get the idea.”

Jake nodded. Sounded good to him. Hopefully it would go as well as Hawkins expected. Thankfully they had thought to take the sidearms of their bodyguards, because when they got to the safe house, it had obviously been ransacked. They both drew their weapons and searched the place, but it seemed whoever had been there was long gone now. Unfortunately along with everything else. Jake cursed. 

Hawkins just chuckled. “Oh come on, Jake. You really think we wouldn’t plan for this contingency? Follow me.” He led Jake into the basement. It took a little searching to find the false wall but find it he did. He grabbed one of the large backpacks and handed it to Jake, grabbing another for himself. “Start loading up. It’s gonna take about two weeks to get to Jericho from here,” Hawkins told him. He had noticed that the trucks were gone so it looked like they were going on foot after all. Despite the time factor, he preferred it that way anyway. Less chance of running across checkpoints, easier to get away quickly and hide. Any road gangs still operating wouldn’t go too far from said roads, so traveling through the forest as much as possible should be relatively safe. As safe as anything gets these days at least. 

Their biggest problem would be water. Carrying enough water for two weeks wouldn’t be easy, but they had no way of knowing what water was contaminated and what wasn’t. Neither of them were privy to any radiological surveys of the areas they would be walking through. He grabbed a testing kit though so they could refill if they found some clean water and packed up enough for a bottle and a half a day each. It would be enough to keep them from getting weak from dehydration, especially given the dropping temperatures as they got deeper into fall so they wouldn’t be sweating nearly as much, but it would still give them room for food and other supplies. 

The water filled up most of one of the large packs. The rest was filled with spare ammunition. They decided to stick with the one sidearm and one rifle each so they wouldn’t have to carry as much, so there were only two types of ammunition to pack. The other bag was filled with enough MRE’s for them to eat once a day until they got there, and they hoped to find some other food along the way, but they had enough to keep up their strength for the journey. They would be in trouble if it took longer than two weeks, but they only had so much space. Also, in the other pack was the rest of the spare ammo, and a couple mylar blankets for emergencies. They each had a flashlight clipped to their belts, a rifle over their shoulders, and their sidearms, along with the packs that they ended up reorganizing so they would both have what they needed if they happened to get separated and they headed out. 

Jake suggested sleeping in the safe house, but was shot down. “They’ve already found it once. I’m not gonna risk someone coming back while we’re sleeping. They ended up heading into the woods and sleeping in a tree instead. When Jake asked what if they fall out of the tree in their sleep, Hawkins rolled his eyes. “Use your belt to tie yourself to the branch,” he said as though it should be obvious. 

After that it was a long journey. They narrowly avoided getting involved in more than one skirmish, one by the skin of their teeth. After about a week, they stumbled across some untainted water and refilled all their empty bottles so they could stop rationing so much. They managed to catch a couple rabbits and squirrels to supplement the MRE’s along the way, so they weren’t too hungry either. They were exhausted though, but they soldiered on. They walked at least twelve hours a day, mostly at night to combat the cold and slept during the day. 

Jake used a lot of the trip to do some soul-searching and came to more than one realization along the way. It wasn’t like Hawkins was much for chit-chat, so he had plenty of time to fill during the walk. He was sure it was pure luck that they didn’t run into any more trouble than they did during the trip. They took a wide berth around any towns, which added a couple days to their journey, but gave them more safety. The knew nothing about the situation in this country right now, so it was too risky to even resupply. 

It was almost three weeks since they left Texas before they made it back to Jericho. Three months since they left Jericho last. Jake led them through the woods that would lead to the back of Emily’s house. It was a little more risky out here this close to town, but he wrote the patrol routes himself. Avoiding them wasn’t as difficult as it would otherwise be and he and Hawkins slipped in the back door silently only to find that no one was home. It showed signs of being lived in though and Emily’s clothes were still in the closet, so they just had to wait for her to get home.


	2. Chapter 2

As they waited, Jake collapsed on the couch and Hawkins was the one pacing. “Now who’s trying to wear a hole in the floor,” Jake asked amused. 

“How can you be so relaxed? We have no idea what the situation is like in this town, who’s alive, who’s dead, what the politics are like, how the war is affecting them. This is definitely not a situation to let down our guard in.” 

Jake shook his head. “I get that, Hawkins. I do. But right now, in this moment, we are perfectly safe. We know Emily is still living here and we know that she would never turn us in, no matter what.” When Hawkins gave him a look, he rolled his eyes and amended. “Okay, /I/ Know that.”

It was only about an hour before they heard the front door opening and both drew their weapons. They knew it was probably Emily, but there was no point in being careless. Emily came around the corner and stopped short when she saw them before she launched herself at Jake, hugging him tightly. “Oh Jake!” Jake let his gun fall and hugged her back, relieved. At least he was relieved until she pulled back and smacked him on the arm. “Where the hell have you been? It’s been three months. I didn’t know where you were, if you were dead, if you were coming back…”

Jake grabbed her shoulders and cut her off. “I’m sorry, Em. Really. It’s a long story, but I promise you I got back as soon as I could.”

She huffed and looked between him and Hawkins. “You both look like crap. Do you need something to eat or drink?” When they nodded she went to get a tray of water and snacks and came back to sit down. “So what happened?” 

“Like I said, that’s a long story and we’ll get to that eventually, but we need to know what’s been going on here. Am I still being hunted? The Rangers? Is Beck still here?”

Emily let out a heavy breath and leaned back on the couch. “That’s another long story. It wasn’t long after you left that Beck called off the manhunt and dropped everything against us. He defected from the Cheyenne military. Told the town that he had evidence that they had been behind the bombs to seize power so we basically cut ourselves off again. Not that it was too hard to do. The military, J&R, Ravenwood, they all left this area not long after you did to deal with the war. They have more important things to do to administrate the rural areas of Kansas.”

Jake let out a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good. But what about everything we need? What about protection?” 

Emily smiled. “We’re taking care of all that ourselves. Beck and his men stuck around so we basically have a military now. The Rangers work with them as needed and still function as border patrol. Food is good. All the farms have a good crop, pretty much everyone in town has gardens and there are fruit trees all over town now. Everyone with livestock has been breeding them like crazy so we can get through the winter. We learned our lessons last year. Our biggest need is medicine, but Dale is doing pretty good out there trading for it and we managed to get a good stockpile in place before Beck was ordered out and had to quit, so we’re okay.”

Jake tried to take it all in. It seemed that the survivors were still surviving and doing a much better job of it than before. “And what about guns and ammo? Any more trouble from New Bern?”

“There are plenty of guns all over town. We have more than we could ever need, and there are quite a few people in town with the equipment to make ammo. We just have to make sure not to throw out our spent cartridges and they can be reused. Not that we’re going to have any trouble with that anytime soon. Between everything the military confiscated from the border skirmish a few months ago and everything that Beck ordered and started stockpiling we should be good for years anyway,” Emily explained. 

Hawkins made his first foray into the conversation now that he knew the town would be okay. “And Darcy?” 

Emily smiled at him. “She’s good. Her and the kids moved back to your house. She’s working at the sheriff’s office again. There have been a lot of changes to the way things are run around here too.”

“Like what?” Hawkins asked. 

“Well, we basically have set up our own full government. Gray is still the mayor, but Beck is the head of defense. Eric is the judge since he’s pretty much the only one still in town with a law degree, and everyone trusts him.”

Hawkins nodded. It sounded like they were handling things pretty well. “Do you know if I’m welcome back in town?” he asked. 

Emily looked at him confused. “Why wouldn’t you be? I haven’t heard anything otherwise.”

Hawkins just gave a nervous chuckle and looked at Jake. “Since apparently I’m good, I’ll feel Beck out on it and let you know.” Hawkins gave him a grateful nod. 

Emily looked at them. “Okay. Your turn. Where have you been?” 

“We’ve been…” Jake started. 

“Jake,” Hawkins cut him off with a warning.

“I’m not keeping it a secret. There’s no reason to anymore,” Jake told him. 

“There is still a lot of dangerous information. To all of us,” Hawkins said seriously. 

Jake rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to tell her /everything/, but she needs to know the basics. Trust me,” Jake said just as seriously and Hawkins nodded slowly, not too sure, but willing to let him go for now and deal with any damage control later. Jake looked back at Emily and started to explain. “When Hawkins came to get me it was because he had a problem. He knew who was behind the attacks and he needed to get the evidence to Texas before they sided with Cheyenne and he needed a pilot to get him there. It was a rough trip and it took a while to recover, and then by the time we were well enough to travel, the war was in full swing and getting back across the border was easier said than done, but we finally managed and walked for weeks to get here.” Hawkins breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t given up any sensitive information. It seemed he had a better head on his shoulders than he thought. 

Emily considered the matter for a while. She knew that he was leaving a lot out, but also knew that she probably didn’t want to know, and didn’t really need to know either. Apparently it was a pretty big secret, but she would guess that Hawkins was some kind of secret agent or something and had recruited Jake to help. That was enough to zip her questions. “But you’re back now? Like for good?” she asked, looking a little uncomfortable. 

Jake narrowed his eyes at her discomfort as he said, “Yeah. Why?” 

Emily sighed. “Well…I need to tell you something. It’s just…we weren’t sure that you were even coming back and…” 

They were interrupted by the front door opening and a man’s voice calling out, “Honey, are you home?”

Jake’s eyes widened, and Hawkins slipped into the kitchen out of sight. He wasn’t letting anyone else see him until he knew that it was safe. Emily winced and looked back as Kyle, who had come in with Roger’s group, walked into the room and stopped short at the sight of Jake. “Can you…let us talk Kyle? I’ll catch up with you tomorrow?” He nodded and walked out without another word. 

“So…That makes things pretty clear,” Jake said, not sure how he was feeling at the moment. Granted he had been planning to end things with them anyway, but learning that she had moved on before he even got back was a hard blow.

Emily sighed and took his hand. “Jake, I’m sorry. I never meant for things to happen like this.” 

Jake looked away. “How did it happen?” he asked petulantly. 

“Roger had asked him to look after me before he left and then when you were gone too, he started trying to and one thing led to another. I really thought you weren’t coming back or I would have waited…”

“It’s fine,” Jake cut her off. “Really. It’s better this way.”

“Jake…” she said sadly. 

“No, I mean it. We would never have worked, Em. We should have let the past stay buried, but with everything going on…it’s not surprising we fell back on what was familiar. Comforting. Easy. We needed comfort and found it in each other. There are no hard feelings here. Really,” Jake assured her. 

Emily breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you see that too. Still, I should have waited. I should have talked to you first.”

Jake just waved her off. “It’s fine. Like you said, you didn’t know if I was coming back. I know I don’t have the best track record as far as that goes,” he joked. Personally, he agreed with her, but there was no point in making an issue of it now. Best to just let it lay. 

She smiled slightly at him. “So…friends still?” she asked hopefully. 

Jake pulled her into a hug. “Always, Em,” and she hugged him back gratefully.


	3. Chapter 3

Hawkins had snuck out while he and Emily were talking, presumably headed home, so Jake did the same. He knew he was welcome now, but still tried to stay unseen while he made his way to his mother’s house. She deserved to be the first to know he was back. He managed to make it without being spotted and her jaw dropped when she saw him, and he was greeted with a hug very reminiscent to the one when he had come home after his last long absence. He gave her the same basic story he’d told Emily and by the time he finished, Eric was barreling in the door. “Mom! You’ll never believe…” He stopped short and laughed. “Or maybe you would.” He walked over and pulled Jake into a hug. “Welcome home, brother.”

Jake laughed with him. “Thanks Eric. Or should I say, Judge Green,” he teased. 

Eric just shook his head as he sat down. “Emily told you huh?”

“Emily? You saw Emily?” Gail asked. 

Jake nodded. “I had to make sure I wasn’t still a fugitive. She caught me up on everything. I’m guessing Kyle spilled the beans?” he asked Eric. 

Eric chuckled and gave his own nod. “That he did. Didn’t seem too happy about it either. I’m guessing you know…”

Jake cut him off. “Yeah. I know. And I have no intention of fighting him. Emily and I are friends and that’s it.”

“But Jake…” Gail started worriedly. 

Jake shook his head. “No, Mom. I know what you’re thinking and us getting back together after Dad…well…we both needed something and fell back on what was familiar, but we both agree that’s all it was. I’m good with it. Really.”

She didn’t look convinced but let it drop. “Well, this calls for a celebration. Are you staying for dinner?” she asked Eric who nodded. 

Once Gail was working on dinner, Eric asked Jake, “You coming into the station tomorrow or you need some time?” 

Jake looked confused. “What do you mean? Why would I come into the station?” 

“Well, you are still sheriff of Jericho,” Eric told him. He new that Jake probably didn’t know that, but he wasn’t going to resist teasing his brother. 

“No. That’s not…they have to have replaced me by now. I was never a proper sheriff anyway.”

Eric shook his head. “Nope. They did sort of try to replace you, but Bill is just acting sheriff. He refused to take on the full title and will be rather eager to hand it off now that you’re back. No one fought him very hard though. As long as the job gets done in the meantime, everyone wanted to wait for you to come back, or at least give it more time for it to be clear that you wouldn’t. Most people already lost hope on that, but Bill was one of the few who didn’t.” 

“And you? Mom?” Jake wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer to that, but had to ask anyway. 

Eric grinned. “We knew you would be back.” 

Jake let out a sigh of relief. “I guess I’ll stop by tomorrow, but I’m not going back to work just yet. And I’m still not wearing the uniform,” he added. 

Eric laughed. “I think you might just give everyone a heart attack if you did.”

Jake chuckled and let himself fall into the familiar banter with his brother while they waited on dinner, but inside his mind was whirling. Eric had to go and mention Bill. Jake had come to the realization that Bill meant far more to him than he should, and he had no idea what to do about that. I mean, yeah, they had that one encounter back in high school after Jake found out that Bill was gay, but that wasn’t exactly the best of situations. In fact, Jake could freely admit now that he had been a complete ass. Even if he could get Bill to forgive him for all that, there was no guarantee that he even thought of him that way. Jake was way out of his element. He and Emily had been basically together since they were kids, making it ‘official’ when they were thirteen and she was the only person he’d ever dated. He had no idea what to do about Bill. 

Jake was pulled from his thoughts when his mother called him for dinner and he dug in like he was starving, which he practically was. He ended up telling his story again to Eric and knew he would have to tell it at least one more time, but he finished eating and then went upstairs to sleep in a bed rather than a tree for the first time in weeks. 

The next morning, he woke to a nice breakfast and hugged his mother and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.” She just smiled at him and patted his cheek in response and they had a nice breakfast after which he said, “I should probably go face the town now.” And Bill, he didn’t say. He would gladly put the rest of the town off for a few more days, but he desperately wanted to see Bill. That and he needed to talk to Beck about Hawkins without managing to let on that he was back too. 

Gail went into town with him, on horseback, since fuel was a limited resource. They only managed to make enough biofuel to keep one ambulance, one firetruck, and one cop car fueled. At least they didn’t have to worry about generators anymore. Even if the power grid went out again, they could still use the wind turbines. In fact, they might even be. He wasn’t sure about that. It hardly mattered though. They had power and he could figure that out in time. 

Gail was now working full time in the med center as a nurse, so Jake left her there and headed the rest of the way to city hall himself and he was glad of it. He needed the time to think. He was definitely not expecting the hero’s welcome he got when he walked in the door, but he was only looking for one face and it didn’t take him long to find it as Bill walked over with a grin and held out his hand, which Jake took with his own grin and shook heartily, but Jake shook his head when Bill tried to hand him the badge. “Give me a few days, Bill. It’s been a long few months, okay?” He had noticed the look on Bill’s face when he tried to turn it down and he knew that Bill didn’t want the job, so he wanted to let him know that he would come back. 

“Okay, Jake. No problem. Where have you been?” he asked. 

“I’d really rather only tell the story once more, so why don’t you gather everyone who needs to know here this afternoon, and I’ll explain as much as I’m at liberty to explain, which isn’t a whole lot, just so you know,” Jake told him. 

Bill nodded. “Good enough. So since you’re not coming back to work yet, what are you gonna do today?” 

Jake shrugged. “Well, I need to have a conversation with Beck at some point, but otherwise, I thought I’d just walk around and check things out. I understand there have been a lot of changes since I’ve been gone.” 

Bill chuckled slightly. “That’s an understatement. Beck’s new office is in the old J&R building. He refitted that to be the new military headquarters once it was abandoned.”

Jake grinned and clapped a hand on Bill’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Thanks, Bill. I’ll see you later?” Bill nodded and Jake turned to head out. It took him more than an hour to get down the street to Beck’s office because he kept getting stopped to talk to people. 

He got directions to the right office and knocked on the door, hearing a curt, “Enter.” He stepped into the room and Beck glanced up and did a double take. “Jake! I heard a rumor that you were back but didn’t quite believe it.” Neither of them looked particularly comfortable. 

“Yep. I’m back. Long time no see,” Jake said bitterly. 

Beck winced. “Look. Jake. About before. I apologize. I was misled and was following the wrong orders from the wrong people.” 

Jake nodded. That was all he needed to hear. “It’s all water under the bridge. As long as you’re straight now.” Beck nodded back at him. “Good. So I’m meeting a bunch of people at town hall after lunch who need to know the basics of what happened, but I have permission to tell you the full story. Or at least most of it. Whatever you haven’t pieced together yet, that is.”

“I’m assuming since the bomb went missing from Cheyenne and shortly afterwards, Texas joined Columbus, you had something to do with that?” Beck said. Jake nodded. “And Hawkins?” he guessed. 

Jake nodded again. “We had to get them the bomb so that they could examine it for themselves and see the proof.” Beck nodded. “About Hawkins…”

Beck looked at him curiously. “If you’re wondering if I’m still after him, I’m not. Well not for anything bad anyway. I could use some help setting up an intelligence division here, but that’s it.” 

Jake laughed. It seemed they really were doing things right. “I’ll let him know then.”

“So, he’s back too?” Beck asked, and Jake looked rather uncomfortable, so Beck backtracked. “Never mind. You don’t have to answer that. I’ll just assume you have a secure phone or some other form of contacting him unless I hear otherwise,” and Jake gave him a grateful nod. They spent another couple hours in a Q and A, partially about the incidents and partially about nothing before Jake headed out to find some lunch before the meeting at town hall. 

Once he’d told his story for hopefully the last time to all the Rangers who weren’t on patrol, Jimmy, Bill, and Gray, he headed for Hawkins’ house. He was assuming even if he wasn’t there that he had made contact with Darcy and she would know how to contact him. He knew that he was right when she didn’t open the door right away, but just cracked it open to see who was there before she let him in. It was confirmed when she called him down. When Jake filled him in on the conversation with Beck, Hawkins looked at Darcy questioningly who looked slightly annoyed. “You promise me that anything that requires being gone more than one night you will send someone else on.”

“Whenever possible, yes,” Hawkins promised and Darcy nodded. Hawkins told Jake not to say anything to Beck just yet. He would see him in a few days. After some time with his family. Jake didn’t need to be a mind reader to see how much that statement pleased Darcy so he laughed and left them to it before heading back to his mother’s house.


	4. Chapter 4

Jake finally had a plan. Well, sort of. He waited until the time Bill usually left the station and started to leave. “Where are you going?” His mother asked. 

Jake winced and turned around. “I just need to go out for a while.”

“Out where?” She asked curiously. If someone had come to get him she wouldn’t have questioned it, but getting up and going somewhere out of the blue wasn’t exactly normal in this day and age. 

Jake sighed. “I just have some things I need to take care of.”

“Things that couldn’t be taken care of during the day?” she asked worriedly. 

Jake rolled his eyes. “Mom. You know I’m not that guy anymore. I’m not hunting anyone or looking for any trouble. Please just trust me.”

She looked skeptical, but nodded. “Be careful out there after dark. The last thing we need right now is a lame horse.”

 

Jake nodded and slipped out. He had his sidearm strapped to his belt, but that was nothing new. He always had a weapon these days. Even slept with the thing under his pillow. He got to Bill’s house and didn’t see his horse outside, so he probably wasn’t home yet, but he knocked on the door anyway. When there wasn’t an answer, he sat on the steps to wait. 

It wasn’t long before he heard a horse approaching and looked up to see that it was Bill. He smiled and moved off the steps as Bill approached and could see the confusion on the man’s face from here. “Jake? What’s up? Did something happen?” he asked worriedly, not getting off his horse yet. 

Jake shook his head. “No, everything’s fine. I was just hoping to talk to you about something.”

Bill blinked but slid off his horse and headed for the house. “Oookay.” He let himself and Jake in. “This is about the sheriff thing isn’t it? You’re not taking it back are you? You’re gonna stick me with it.”

Jake chuckled. “No, Bill. Nothing like that. If you still want me to take back over after this, then I will.”

“After what?” Bill said impatiently. Having Jake in his house like this had him on edge. 

“I wanted to…to talk about what happened in high school,” Jake said nervously. 

“What happened in high school?” Bill asked non-chalantly trying to play dumb.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Jake told him. “Under the bleachers that day.”

Bill winced. “Come on, Jake. Do we really have to bring up ancient history?” The last thing he wanted to talk about was that day. His first kiss. The first time he had touched another guy and then…no. He didn’t want to talk about it or think about it. 

Jake sighed. This wasn’t going according to plan at all. “Okay. That’s okay. I just want to say…I’m sorry. I was your friend and when I found out you were gay, I never should have blackmailed you. Especially not into that.”

Bill shuffled uncomfortably. “Okay then. Forget about it. All’s forgiven. Water under the bridge and all that. Now can we drop it?”

Jake looked away sadly and nodded. Obviously all wasn’t forgiven and it wasn’t water under the bridge, but Bill obviously didn’t want it mentioned so he would drop it and take another tact. “Okay. It’s dropped. I just…I figured some things out recently and…and life’s short, you know? Too short.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What is all this about?” 

Jake sighed again. “Life’s too short to keep living a lie,” he tried again. He knew he was being a little cryptic, but he wanted some kind of sign of something before he said too much. 

Bill felt himself starting to panic. “What are you saying, Jake? That mean you’re planning to out me?”

Jake’s eyes snapped up to Bill’s. “No, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m not talking about you. I’m…I’m talking about me. I’m the one who’s been living a lie.”

Bill was relieved, but now even more confused. “Can you just please get to the point?” Bill asked impatiently. 

Jake huffed. So much for easing into it. “I’m gay,” he blurted out. “I’ve been hiding it even from myself. I’ve been so busy running from it that I’ve never even stopped to consider it until recently, but like I said. Life’s too short.”

Bill narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Jake. “Right. You’re gay. Sure. And why are you telling me?” 

Jake bit his lip and looked away. “A lot of reasons. I was the first one to know about you, so it’s only fair that you’re the first one to know about me. Because I know I screwed up before and I need to make amends. But mostly because…because I…” he couldn’t get any more words out as he looked up at Bill and got lost in his eyes. 

Bill’s expression hardened. Now it was starting to make sense. Well, no really. He still had no idea what Jake would gain from this or why now, after everything, but it was painfully clear what he was doing. Bill wasn’t the same naïve easy prey he was when he was a kid though. “Okay then. Suck my dick,” he said with a smirk. If Jake wanted something to hold over him, he was gonna make damn sure he had the ammunition to attack back.

“Wait…what?” Jake’s eyes widened. 

Bill let out a bitter laugh. “That’s what I thought. Come on, Jake. You didn’t really expect to come in here after all this time and everything that’s happened and really expect me to believe that line of crap did you?” If he was going to ‘realize he was gay’ it wouldn’t have taken fifteen years. 

Jake gaped at him for a second as he got it. He realized that Bill thought he was lying and trying to trap him in something, and Jake couldn’t exactly blame him. It did look bad. Especially since he’d done it before. He realized that Bill needed some protection from whatever it was that he thought that Jake had planned. He needed proof, and Jake would give it to him. He owed him that much and more. “Okay, but you should know that I…I’ve never done this before. I probably won’t…um…be very good at it,” he said as he knelt in front of Bill and reached for the front of his pants. 

Bill gaped for a second in shock as Jake fumbled with his pants and about the time he got them open, Bill found words. “Jake…what are you…” 

Jake didn’t respond and swallowed heavily with nerves as he slowly slid Bill’s pants down slightly, revealing his rapidly hardening cock. He did want to do this, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t terrified. He heard Bill say, “Jake, you don’t have to…” His words choked off into a moan as Jake wrapped his lips around his length and sucked. 

Bill lost all thought of stopping Jake at that moment. He was really doing this. Not well of course, but the fact that it was Jake easily made up for that as Bill’s hand instinctively gripped his hair and his head fell back with a moan. 

Jake swiped his tongue around the head as he sucked him down as far as he could…which was barely halfway, and holy crap, Bill was huge. He’d gotten a hint of that when he rubbed him off back in high school, but he was still a kid then, so it wasn’t quite /this/ big. He could hear Bill’s breathing speed up and his own sped up along with him as he felt himself getting hard too. If he still had any doubts about his orientation, that alone would have killed them. He worked Bill for quite a while, bobbing and sucking before he felt Bill’s hand tightening in his hair as he started to thrust. Jake choked a bit, but let him do what he needed. 

Bill felt himself reaching the edge and couldn’t help but thrust into Jake’s mouth. He felt Jake choking, but he was making no move to stop him so Bill kept going. “God…Jake…I’m close…” he panted out, wanting to make sure that Jake had a chance to move away if he wanted to, but Jake just sucked harder and Bill moaned as he began to fuck Jake’s mouth, ignoring the way he kept choking with every thrust. It didn’t take long though before he was coming hard in Jake’s mouth as he panted for breath. 

Jake swallowed instinctively as the first spurt of warm liquid hit his throat and then he was swallowing greedily, trying to get everything that Bill spilled. He missed some that hit his lips and face, but as he sat back, looking up at Bill with lust-filled eyes, he used his finger to catch it and licked it off. “B-believe me, now?” Jake asked hopefully. 

Bill nodded slowly, looking down at Jake with wide eyes. If the fact that he’d actually done it wasn’t proof enough, the rather large bulge in the front of his pants was. “Jake…I…” He felt the guilt washing over him now. He hadn’t meant to push Jake into something here. He was just trying to make him admit that he was lying and hopefully tell him why, but now that he knew he wasn’t, he felt horrible. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean.”

Jake shook his head at the apology. “Don’t be. I…I liked it. And…and even if I didn’t…we’d be even.”

Bill shook his head. That didn’t make it right. But he could at least return the favor. He grabbed Jake’s hand and pulled him over to the couch before pushing him down and moved his hands to the front of Jake’s pants. “Let me…?” he asked hopefully and Jake nodded. Bill wasted no time opening Jake’s pants and taking his cock in his mouth and proceeded to take him apart with practiced skill. It didn’t take long at all before he was swallowing around Jake’s pulsing cock as he came.


	5. Chapter 5

Bill got up and plopped down on the couch next to Jake, doing up his pants as he did, prompting Jake to do the same. “So…that all you needed?” Bill asked, feeling more than a little vulnerable right now, and definitely not even letting himself entertain the idea that Jake might want more from this. 

Jake turned to look at Bill searchingly for a moment before he reached out towards him. “Not really,” Jake said as his hand made contact with Bill’s cheek, but Bill turned away. 

“Look, Jake. You want to get your rocks off from time to time with the only other gay guy in town that’s fine, but let’s not call it anything but what it is okay?” 

Jake pulled Bill back around to look at him. “And that’s all you think this is?” Bill nodded as his eyes darted around the room, anywhere but Jake. “And is that all you want it to be?” Jake asked, heart beating out of his chest. If it was, then Jake would walk away and let it go, no matter how much it killed him. 

Bill sucked in a sharp breath and opened and closed his mouth a few times before he said, after a long hesitation, “Yes.”

Jake huffed a slight laugh. “You’ve always been a bad liar, Bill.” Bill opened his mouth to protest but soon found it busy as Jake’s lips slotted over his and he couldn’t help but kiss him back, no matter how much he knew that was a mistake. When Jake’s hand tangled in his hair as his other arm pulled him close he melted into it. 

The kiss didn’t end until they both needed air and Jake pulled back and rested his forehead against Bill’s as he tried to catch his breath. “Jake…” Bill said with a mix of hope and fear. “Please…”

“Please what?” Jake breathed out. 

“I…I don’t…” Bill had no idea what he was asking for right now. Whether he wanted more or to stop or what. It took him a moment before he pulled back and got up, starting to pace. It seemed like Jake was right. They were going to have to talk about high school if they were going to do this. “You laughed at me and walked away, Jake.” He’d had nightmares about that afterwards. He could still hear the laughter in his head when he thought about. He’d cum in his pants and Jake had laughed and walked away. 

Jake winced and looked out the window. “I wasn’t…wasn’t laughing at /you/ Bill. It was…more like…hysterical laughter.”

Bill looked at him and narrowed his eyes suspiciously and curiously. “What are you talking about?” 

Jake sighed. “When…when I started that whole thing, I just intended…I intended to get you to give me a blow job and that was it,” Jake was trying to explain his thought process back then and he knew it would make him look bad. Even worse than the whole setup was to begin with, but he couldn’t stand letting Bill think he was laughing at him anymore. He hated the hurt in Bill’s voice and hated himself even more for putting it there. He needed to explain. “I figured I’d have to butter you up a bit first though so I kissed you and then…well…things got out of hand. I never intended to touch you at all, but I couldn’t help myself and then…when you came, I freaked. I loved every second of it and I freaked out. I’m sorry, Bill. I was an asshole. I admit that. But I wasn’t laughing at you.”

Bill blinked at him for a moment as he tried to wrap his head around that and the hope he’d felt earlier increased, but so did the fear. “Jake…”

Jake took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He knew from Bill’s reaction that he felt more than he wanted to. The fact that it had haunted him for so long was proof enough of that. It was time to go all in. He could see the fear in Bill’s eyes and wanted nothing more than to make that go away. “Life is too short to…to leave things unsaid too…” Jake said nervously, trying to steel himself to say what he needed to. 

Bill shook his head. “I…I can’t…” He thought that Jake was trying to tell him to say it and there was no way he could do that. 

“I love you, Bill,” Jake blurted out. “I…I think I always have.”

Bill did a double take at Jake. “You…but…I…” he stammered as his mind went in a hundred different directions. Could he really do this? Could he give his heart to the one person he’d spent most of his life protecting it from? He moved back over to the couch and sat back down, noticing that Jake wouldn’t even look at him now. He took a deep breath before he started speaking. “Do you remember when we were ten and Jack Dawson shoved me off the top of the jungle gym and broke my arm and you tackled him to the ground and beat the crap out of him?” 

Jake finally looked at him, face scrunched up in thought as he nodded. “Yeah…what…”

“That was…was the day I…fell in love with you,” Bill said nervously. 

Jake let out a breath of relief, but he couldn’t quite breathe completely easily yet. “And…do you still…” Jake trailed off, biting his lip, but then Bill nodded slowly and Jake crashed his lips into Bill’s again, kissing him for all he was worth. When it ended, Jake breathed out again, “I love you, Bill.”

This time Bill could respond. “I…I love you, too, Jake,” he said barely audible before Jake kissed him again. This time soft and sweet and slow. 

When he pulled back again, Jake was grinning as he ran a thumb over Bill’s cheek. “So, do you still want me to take the badge back?” 

Bill blinked at the change of subject, still a little dazed from the kiss. “I…um…why wouldn’t I? I mean…yeah, you would be my boss, but that doesn’t have to affect this.”

“Well, aren’t there rules or something?” Jake asked. He could be wrong. It wasn’t like he’d ever read the rulebook after all, but he was pretty sure something like this wasn’t allowed. 

Bill pulled back and looked at him in alarm. “You weren’t thinking of…of telling people…about us, were you?” 

Jake shook his head. “No, no. Not now. Eventually…maybe, but not now.”

Bill breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay then. Nothing to worry about. We’ll worry about eventually then if it ever comes.”

Jake looked curiously at him. “Does no one know that you’re…” 

“No. Well…Jimmy does, but that’s it,” Bill told him. 

“Oh,” Jake said surprised. He would have thought that more people would know given how long it had been since Bill figured it out. “So have you and Jimmy…”

“Oh god no,” Bill cut him off with a shudder. “No way. Jimmy is straight as an arrow and happily married. I would never go there. Not in a million years.”

Jake chuckled. “Okay, okay. Just wondered if that was why he was the only one that knew is all”

Bill shook his head. “No. He’s just my best friend. He’s always around me and noticed a few things once and it kinda came out.”

“Are you gonna…tell him about us?” Jake asked, settling back on the couch and pulling Bill to his side.

“That’s up to you,” Bill told him. 

“Let’s not for right now. Just give us some time to…to figure things out and stuff first, you know?” Bill nodded. He was good with that. If Jake had just recently figured out he was gay he would need some time to deal before anyone else found out anyway. The fact that he’d told Bill at all was proof enough that he cared and how much he wanted this. They could figure the rest out later. Right now Bill was just too overjoyed to actually have everything he ever dreamed of to even consider rocking the boat even if he did disagree. 

Jake and Bill spent the next couple hours cuddled up on the couch talking and Jake didn’t want to leave, but Bill made a good point. “You know that if you’re not home tonight, especially after just getting back to town, your mother will be down at the station sending out search parties,” he chuckled. 

Jake laughed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” He kissed Bill softly one more time. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And I figure I can come back to work Monday?” 

Bill nodded and smiled happily at Jake. “Okay. That works. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jake.” 

When Jake got home he had to avoid questions from Gail again before he made it up to bed and fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning after breakfast, Jake rode into town with his mother again, leaving her at the med center and headed to Bailey’s. There was no better place to get the pulse of the town and just enjoy being back. That and it was easier to see the people who would want to see him there rather than running all over town looking for them. He plopped down at the bar. “Hey Mary.”

“Jake!” she said happily reaching over the bar to hug him. “Eric said you were back. How are you?” 

“I’m good, Mary. Really.” Jake looked around at the crowds and smiled at the music. “Looks like things are good here too.” 

Mary nodded. “Long as we have power it’s always hopping in here. The booze sucks, but the atmosphere makes up for it I guess.”

“Still depending on the still for the booze?” Jake asked. 

“Somewhat. Dale manages to get some stuff in trade fairly often, but it’s not really a priority and it gets gone pretty quick, so it’s whatever is available. What doesn’t go to the med center anyway. What brings you here?” 

Jake shrugged. “Just wanted to be at the center of the activity for a while.” Mary nodded and handed him a glass of whiskey from one of the last bottles they had at the moment and Jake toasted her with a lopsided smile. He’d talked to quite a few people over the course of the day as they came in and out, including Eric. 

It was just a little after lunchtime when someone came barreling in. “There was a cave-in at the mine!” 

Jake jumped up and grabbed his jacket, pulling it on as he was running outside. He jumped on his horse and pushed it to it’s limits towards the mine. By the time he got there, Bill and the rest of the deputies were already assessing the situation. As he walked up he heard Bill barking out orders. “Get back to town and get all the biofuel we have. Ciphon from the patrol car and the firetruck if you have to, but we need to get that crane running.” He turned to someone else. “You get to the med center. Get a triage team and an ambulance up here and tell them to be prepared for wounded.” 

Jake walked up and asked, “Where do you need me?” Bill seemed to have a good handle on the situation. 

Bill shrugged. “Unless you have one of your brilliant ideas we need to start digging.” Jake nodded and went to do just that, followed by everyone else who hadn’t been given another task. 

“We need to be careful that we don’t make it worse as we’re moving stuff,” Jake called out to the digging crew. 

It wasn’t long before Bill had stopped giving orders and came to help dig. “Don’t suppose you wanna take over heading this thing up?” he asked Jake wryly. 

Jake chuckled as he kept moving rocks. “You’re doing just fine on your own, but I should have known you’d try to come up with an emergency to get me back sooner,” he joked. 

Bill shook his head amusedly. It wasn’t much longer before the biofuel and the team from the med center arrived in the ambulance and Bill went to coordinate, pulling someone who knew how to run a crane. It was four hours before they pulled the first of the injured out, and found the first of the dead. Jake knew better than to hope that it would be the last. It was almost midnight before everyone was accounted for and there were sixteen dead, more than forty injured and only twelve who were lucky enough to escape unscathed or with minor injuries. 

Once they had the last of the people headed out to the med center, Jake leaded against the wall of the mine to take a breather and Bill walked over and handed him a bottle of water. “What’s the situation?” Jake asked. 

“Harry thankfully wasn’t too bad off. He says it’ll take at least a month to get the mine operational again. We’ll be okay though. We have more than enough salt stored to meet all our needs and keep trading until it is. We’ve got a cart to take the dead back to town and the deputies are notifying the families that weren’t up here helping. There are a couple other carts ferrying the injured that weren’t critical enough to take up space in the ambulance. I’ll swing by the med center once we’re done here and make sure they’re good on supplies and anything else they might need. Am I forgetting anything?”

Jake shook his head. “I’ll check out the med center while you finish up here. Then you need to go get some rest.” He could tell that Bill was dead on his feet. They had all been working at this the last 12 hours, but Bill had been on duty for another six hours before that. 

“I’m fine,” Bill protested. 

“No. You’re not. We’re all exhausted and we all need some rest. We’ll take care of the critical stuff and worry about everything else tomorrow, okay?” Jake told him. 

Bill sighed and nodded. Jake was right. There was no point running himself to the ground trying to do everything at once when some of it could wait. Jake gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading off to check out the med center. He ended up helping out with the initial deluge for a couple hours before he got a chance to head home and fall asleep. 

Jake didn’t wake up until almost noon the next day and headed straight to the station. Bill didn’t look like he’d slept much, but Jake could tell that he had at least slept. “Got an update?” Jake asked. He may not be officially back yet, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to help out if he was needed. 

Bill looked up at him and sighed. “We lost five more from injuries as of a couple hours ago, bringing the count up to twenty-one dead, but the rest are stable now so that number shouldn’t go up any higher. Harry has a crew put together to start repairs on the mine tomorrow. We were able to get enough of the biofuel back to get the fire-truck running but the patrol car is out until the next batch is ready in a couple weeks.”

Jake nodded. “Sounds like you have things in hand then. You need me anywhere?” 

Bill nodded. “Yeah. Out there, keeping people calm. Most people realize how important that mine is to our survival and they aren’t taking this well. Already broke up two brawls this morning.”

Jake nodded and headed out with a smile at Bill. God, but he wanted to kiss him so badly, but he knew better. Thankfully they managed to get everyone calmed down for the most part by the time the sun went down. Otherwise it would have been a lot worse. Once he was sure things weren’t going to fall apart again, he stopped by the station, ostensibly to check in, but really to see if Bill was still there, but Bill had just left so Jake headed to his house and knocked on the door. “It’s open,” he heard Bill call from inside and he walked in, chuckling a bit at the sight of Bill all rumpled, shirt open, lounged on the couch exhausted. 

Jake walked over and plopped next to him on the couch and leaned over to kiss him softly. “I’ve missed you.”

Bill grinned at him. “Me too.” He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that this was really happening. When he’d woken up the next morning it had taken a while for him to realize that it wasn’t a dream. 

Jake knew that they were both too exhausted to go to bed, as much as he might want to, so they just sat there talking for a couple hours, with plenty of kisses thrown in, before Jake managed to tear himself away to head home and let Bill get some sleep. He gave him one more deep hard kiss before he left and headed home feeling lighter than he had in days.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Jake stopped by the station again, and when he saw how exhausted Bill looked he asked him what was wrong. Bill sighed. “There were two riots last night…or more like this morning really, that I had to get up and handle, so I didn’t get much sleep.” 

Jake shook his head. “Go home, Bill. Get some rest. I’ll come back today.”

Bill looked searchingly at him. “I’m okay. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been on short sleep. Hell, after the bombs I averaged about three hours a night for months.”

Jake chuckled. “Didn’t we all. But there’s no need for it now. Get some rest while you can, because sooner or later there’s going to be another emergency where we’ll need all hands on deck. I can cover things here.” 

Bill gave in and nodded, handing Jake the badge back and letting his fingers brush against Jake’s as he did. “Thanks, Jake.”

Jake grinned and nodded at him. “Of course. Now git.” Bill laughed and headed out and Jake was back to work a day earlier than he intended. 

Once Jake left for the day, he headed to Bill’s house to find him in the garden. It was almost time to harvest everything they could before the weather got any colder. Bill didn’t have a fence, so Jake didn’t dare get too close and risk someone seeing them, but helped him finish up in the garden before they headed inside and once they were in, Bill pulled Jake into a searing kiss. "Thank you again for today,” Bill told him. 

Jake grinned and rested his forehead against Bill’s. “Anytime, babe. You would have done the same for me. You manage to get some sleep?” 

Bill grinned at the nickname and nodded, “Yeah. I crashed for a few hours before I started in the garden.” 

Jake bit his lip, but still managed a slight smirk as he asked, “Wanna go back to bed?” 

Bill blinked for a second before breaking into a wide smirk. “Oh hell yeah,” He dragged Jake to the bedroom and pushed him down onto the bed and climbed over top of him kissing him deeply. Jake kissed him back with just as much fervor and started undoing the buttons on Bill’s shirt. Bill’s breath caught as he realized that this was actually going to happen and he nudged Jake up and stripped his shirt over his head about the same time Jake was sliding Bill’s overshirt off his shoulders and his undershirt quickly followed. 

Bill captured Jakes lips again as he ground his hips down over Jake’s, exhilarated to feel that Jake was just as hard as he was and he moved his hands to the front of Jake’s pants, quickly undoing them and moving back to strip them and his own pants off. He grabbed his homemade lube out of his drawer and moved his lips to Jake’s neck, sucking and biting the skin there as a finger slid inside Jake’s tight hole and he felt Jake shift uncomfortably, so he slowed down and gave him a minute before he started moving and found the sweet spot. 

Jake arched up off the bed with a moan as he felt Bill’s finger moving inside him. It had felt weird at first, but now…it was amazing. He didn’t think he would ever get enough of this. It was nothing like being with Emily. That had been pleasant. Enjoyable. But that was all. This was everything he never needed. He ran one hand through Bill’s hair, tugging lightly every so often as the other roamed every inch of skin he could reach while Bill’s lips moved down his collarbones before he felt the teeth on his nipple and he didn’t even notice at first when Bill slid a second finger in, he was on sensory overload. 

Bill paid a lot of attention to stretching Jake out. He was afraid if he didn’t make this good then he would never get another chance. It wasn’t that he minded bottoming per se. Just not all the time. By the time Bill was inserting a third finger, his lips were wrapping around Jake’s cock and he felt Jake’s hands fisting in his hair. Bill reached into the drawer and grabbed his last condom a few minutes later and removed his fingers from Jake’s ass to rip it open, only to find that it was no good. It had apparently frozen last winter and broken. “Damnit,” he cursed. 

Jake groaned as he thought fast. “It doesn’t matter,” he said and Bill looked up at him in surprise. “Look you’re clean right?” Bill nodded. “So am I, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t know,” Bill hesitated. He wanted to. Badly. But he had never done this without protection before. 

“Bill…please…just fuck me,” Jake breathed out needily. 

That was the end of Bills resistance as he nodded. “Flip over,” he nudged Jake and Jake did so, sticking his ass in the air invitingly. Bill slicked his cock up and slammed in quickly, pausing to give Jake a minute to adjust. “Oh…god…Jake…” Bill panted. 

Jake gave a hissing moan in both pain and pleasure and took a moment to remember how to breathe. He felt so full and it was the most amazing thing he’d ever experienced. After a minute he pressed back against Bill for more and from there it was a haze of motion as Bill pumped his hips, driving his cock into him and leaned over his back, trailing kisses and nips over Jake’s skin as Jake met him with every thrust. “Harder…faster…” Jake gave a panting moan. 

Bill joined his own moan to the mix as he sat up on his knees, one hand on Jake’s upper back for leverage and the other reaching down to stroke Jake’s weeping cock as he did as he was asked and pounded hard and fast into Jake’s tight ass. “God…Jake…Gonna have to…pull out soon…before I cum,” he panted as he felt himself getting closer and closer to the edge. 

Jake gave a whimpering moan. “No, no, no. Cum inside me, Bill. Please,” he begged, still pressing his hips back, meeting Bill thrust for thrust. Bill didn’t have the strength to argue as he slammed harder and faster into Jake, timing his hand on Jake’s cock with his thrusts. He felt the clenching around him just a moment before the warm liquid hit his hand and he was gone. He came harder than he ever had before, cock buried inside Jake and calling his name, even as he heard his own slipping from Jake’s lips. 

Once he was spent he collapsed on the bed next to Jake, pulling out in the process, trying to catch his breath. Jake flipped to his side, facing Bill, also panting for breath and he reached out a hand to Bill’s cheek before running it down his chest to his stomach and back up. Bill turned to look at him, slightly worried as his hand came up to run over Jake’s arm. “No regrets?” he asked hopefully. 

Jake chuckled. “I don’t know. Does regretting not doing this sooner count?” 

Bill broke into a wide grin and huffed a laugh. “In this case, no,” he said happily as he pulled Jake to his side, smiling brightly when Jake’s head came to rest on his shoulder and they lay there in silence for a good long while. “Jake, I…”

He was cut off by both of their radios going off. “We need some help down at the market. There’s some trouble here,” they heard Jimmy’s voice call. 

They both groaned and started grabbing for their clothes and were out the door in under five minutes breaking up the fighting at the market. Apparently Skylar and Dale were holding onto their share of the current salt and not giving it up for anything and some people didn’t like that. Once the fighting was broken up, Jake addressed them. “Look, people. We know you’re on edge. We all know how important that salt is, but right now, we’re all okay. If it becomes necessary, /then/ we can try and talk about redistribution. And by ‘we’ I mean the deputies and I. Not you. What we need right now is for you all to ‘trust’ us. Okay?” He got murmured assents from the crowd as they started to disperse and he breathed a sigh of relief.


	8. Chapter 8

It took a few more days for things to get back to normal. Crime in Jericho was still higher than it had been before the bombs, but not as high as it got at one point. It had leveled off around the middle. Most of it was petty crimes though and easy to deal with. Most people had realized after all they had been through that the only way to survive was to stick together, but tensions were still high, and would probably stay that way until the mine was completely operational again. It didn’t help that they were on the verge of winter, but after a few days all attention was turned towards harvesting everything and everyone came together wherever they were needed. 

There were no yards in Jericho anymore. If grass would grow somewhere than food would too. Even the lawn of town hall was now a garden, and for people who well remembered starvation, they never even needed to be reminded to walk between the rows. It was good when people were too busy to cause trouble. Bill and Jake had barely had a moment alone once the harvest started, but they had managed to steal a bit of time here and there over the course of the two weeks it took them. 

A lot of the obsolete stores in town had been repurposed and many of them had been repurposed to hold food for the winter. Once the harvest was in and inventory had been taken, Gray, Jake, and the deputies breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like they wouldn’t need to ration this year. They wouldn’t be able to go crazy with it, but they had plenty to keep everyone well fed and healthy all winter long without even slaughtering too much of the livestock to put them in a bind. Beef was still going to be a rarity. Cows didn’t breed anywhere near as fast as chickens and pigs, but they could survive another year or two without too much beef. All in all it looked to be a good winter. 

It was during the harvest when they hit Stanley’s farm that he realized how much he really had missed when he noticed the slight baby bump that Mimi was sporting. That explained where Stanley had been. Jake had just figured that he was busier with the farm now that Bonnie was gone, but he was apparently even busier than Jake had thought. He congratulated them, and even stuck around for a while after they were done for the day to catch up. Bill stayed too, but they sat on opposite sides of the room. Stanley was a good friend of both of them so it was only natural for them all to hang out together. 

It was just over a week after the harvest when the next disaster struck. They got a radio call from border patrol that a raiding party from New Bern was on the way and all the deputies and remaining Rangers in town quickly grabbed their weapons and headed out. Jake was glad the patrol car was fueled up now because that was a lot faster than horseback and he piled as many as he could into the car with Bill driving as they made their way to the border. They managed to intercept them just before they got to Talbot’s farm, but the resulting shootout was a mess. 

Jericho’s force was outnumbered two to one, but still they managed to take only three casualties before the thirty strong party from New Bern was reduced to eight who retreated. Jake might have ordered them to follow and make an example of them but he was more worried about the man laying at his feet and on the verge of bleeding to death. He sat in the backseat of the patrol car, Bill laying out on the seat as he kept as much pressure as he could on the stomach wound and Stanley drive them like a bat out of hell to the med center. 

The other four wounded weren’t bad off and could make it there on their own and the dead would be loaded up and sent back to town once everything else was cleaned up, but Bill was racing against the clock. Once Kenchi had him whisked into surgery, Jake turned and punched a wall before running his bloody hands through his hair as he started to pace. It was only a few minutes before he heard his name called and turned to see his mother coming towards him. “Jake, are you alright? What happened?” She started checking him over for injuries. 

Jake shook his head and pushed her back a bit. “I’m fine, Mom. A group from New Bern. We caught up to them just before they hit Talbot’s farm.”

“Are you hurt, Jake?” Gail asked again, seeing that Jake wasn’t really focusing on anything.

He shook his head again. “No, mom. I’m fine. It’s Bill…he was hit. Kenchi is operating now. It…it’s bad.” 

Gail sucked in a sharp breath. She knew that they had lost a lot of people in the past, but Bill had been Jake’s friend since they were kids. They may have had a falling out once Jake turned to crime after flight school, but since they bombs they had put all that behind them. Jake still seemed a little more worked up than he should have been, but she just chalked that up to it being the first firefight that he’d seen in a while. They had those every once in a while. About once a month or so, some group from New Bern decided to test their defenses, so they were all used to it, but Jake had been gone for a while. “Okay honey. You just sit down. Rest. I’ll go see if Kenchi needs any help. Were there any other wounded?” 

Jake shook his head. “A few minor injuries. They’ll probably be here soon. Three dead, but the rest of us are fine.”

Gail nodded. “Okay honey. You just sit for a bit and then go wash up. I’ll find you when there’s something to tell.” 

Jake nodded dumbly and zoned out for a bit as his mother disappeared down the hallway. He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his radio. “Jake…Jake are you there?” 

He pulled the radio from his belt. “I’m here, Jimmy, what’s up.”

“What do you want us to do with the dead from New Bern?” he asked.

“Put them in a cart and take them to the border and dump them. Let New Bern clean up their own bodies,” Jake said harshly. 

There was a pause where Jake assumed that Jimmy was giving the orders before he came back and said, “Hey, Jake? How’s Bill?” 

Jake took a shaky breath before responding. “I don’t know. Kenchi’s working on him. He had to operate. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.”

There was another pause, shorter this time and he wondered if Jimmy was doing the same thing he was. Trying to keep it together. “Okay, Jake. Thanks.” 

“Thank you too, Jimmy. I’m gonna stay here unless you need me, so hold down the fort for me?” 

“You got it, Jake,” Jimmy said and the radio went silent. Jake took a few more deep breaths as he looked down at himself. He knew that he needed to go clean up, but he just couldn’t bring himself to. It was stupid, he knew, but the idea of washing away Bill’s blood just seemed wrong. Until he knew that Bill was going to make it he was going to keep any part of him as close as he could. Jake greeted the other wounded as they came in and helped to get them settled and asked how they were, but mostly he just alternated between sitting and pacing for a long time, stopping to talk to Jimmy every so often and check in on the situation. Every time, Jimmy asked if there was any news on Bill and every time Jake had to tell him no. It was like a knife to his gut. This waiting was driving him insane. 

It was almost four hours since they’d gotten there before Gail came out looking very serious and Jake felt his heart stop. “No…Please…”

“He’s alive, honey,” she told him quickly, seeing that he had jumped to the worst case scenario. “He’s critical, but he’s alive.”

“Is he…will he…” Jake’s throat closed up, unable to ask the questions he needed. 

“We don’t know. He has a chance. The next twenty-four hours will be the hardest part,” she said soothingly, hugging Jake as he tried to hold it together. She figured he would be in the same state if it was Stanley in there too. The three of them had been inseparable most of their lives. “Now…you go clean up.”


	9. Chapter 9

Jake took a steadying breath. “Yeah. Okay, Mom. Just let me call Jimmy and let him know first.” She nodded so Jake pulled out his radio. “Hey Jimmy. You there?” 

“Jake? Any news?” Jimmy answered quickly. 

“He survived the surgery, but he’s still not doing so good. If he survives the next twenty-four hours, he should be okay though,” Jake told him. “How are things there?” He needed to get the information out, but he desperately wanted to change the subject. 

There was a long pause before Jimmy came back. “We’re good here, Jake. Two of the men who died didn’t have any families and I’ve got Brandon out notifying Fred’s wife. Everything else is quiet.”

Jake nodded automatically despite the fact that Jimmy couldn’t see him. “Okay, Jimmy. Let me know if you need me.”

“I will, Jake. Thanks.” 

Jake didn’t bother responding and just put the radio back on his belt and made his way to the showers. He took a long shower before grabbing some spare scrubs to put on, absently wondering if it was the usual ones he wore here and wasn’t that just sad that he had usual scrubs for when he had to shower at the med center. Once he was clean he went looking for someone who could direct him to Bill. 

It took him about five minutes to find him and he slipped into the room and closed the blinds before sinking into the chair next to the bed and taking Bill’s hand and pulling it to his lips. Seeing him like this was killing him. Now that he was relatively alone, he let the tears fall as he just watched the man he loved. After a few minutes he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Bill’s as a hand stroked over his cheek. He jumped back when he heard the door open, but judging by the look he was getting from his mother, he hadn’t been quick enough. 

Gail was shocked to see the position Jake was in and it took her all of three seconds to put two and two together, but she could talk to Jake about that later. “I just need to check on him,” she said walking over to check the monitors and take his vitals. 

“How is he?” Jake asked when she was done. 

“He’s fighting,” Gail told him with a smile, walking around to put a hand on his shoulder. Jake nodded and didn’t take his eyes away from the man in the bed. “How long?” she asked softly. 

Jake didn’t have the strength to keep up the charade right this moment and saw little point in it. She would see right through him anyway. “Since I got back from Texas.” 

Gail nodded. Now she knew where he was all those nights he didn’t come home. She leaned down and kissed Jake’s head. “He’s strong, honey. He’ll get through this,” she assured him. Jake leaned against her and nodded gratefully. She stayed with him for a few minutes, arms wrapped comfortingly around him before she kissed his head again. “I’ll be back to check on him again in a little while. I’ll make sure to knock if anyone else is coming with me.” She didn’t agree with him keeping it a secret, but now wasn’t the time to make an issue of it. She left unsaid that she wasn’t going to knock if she was alone. She at least wanted Jake to be comfortable in front of her. 

Jake didn’t move from Bill’s side, but checked in with Jimmy every hour. Gail also came in every hour to check on him. After the fourth hour, he heard a knock on the door and moved away from Bill, setting his hand back down on the bed as Gail and Kenchi came in. Kenchi checked the wound and changed the bandages and then told them that Bill was still doing well. Every hour he survived was one step closer to pulling through. 

Once he left, Jake breathed a sigh of relief and picked up Bill’s hand again, pressing his lips to it, not even noticing that his mother hadn’t left yet until she came over and hugged him from behind. He quickly dropped Bill’s hand, but she wasn’t having that. She took Bill’s hand and put it back in Jake’s. “Don’t you worry about me, honey.”

Jake took a deep breath and said the words that he’d been turning over in his head since he first came to terms with himself. “Dad would have…”

Gail cut him off quickly, knowing exactly what he was about to say, and completely disagreeing with him. She could see why he would think that, but he was very, very wrong. “Your father,” she said seriously, “loved you. No matter what. He would have supported you and stood by you. He…he would have been happy for you.” She choked up a bit at the end. Talking about Johnston was still hard. 

Jake swallowed heavily more than once as he closed his eyes, hearing the words that he desperately needed to hear. It was a few minutes before he managed to nod and leaned over to rest his forehead against Bill’s hand. It was only a few minutes later that Bill started to stir and Jake reached his free hand up to Bill’s forehead waiting for him to open his eyes. 

Gail moved over to check the monitors as he woke up. She would give them their privacy, but first she had to make sure he was okay. She saw Bill open his eyes and smile brightly up at Jake as he leaned into his touch before his eyes widened and he noticed Gail in the room and started to panic, pulling his hand away from Jake’s. She put a hand on his shoulder soothingly, trying to keep him calm before he made himself worse. “It’s okay, Bill. Let me just check you over and I’ll give you two some time.” Bill nodded and she proceeded with a series of questions that would tell her more than any observation could about how he was doing before she gave them a knowing smile and headed out of the room. 

As soon as she was gone, Bill turned to Jake, “How long has she known?” It wasn’t that he was mad about Jake telling his mother. He just thought he should have known if he was going to. 

“Since not long after you came out of surgery,” Jake told him, rubbing his thumb over the back of Bill’s hand. “I was so worried, I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t move quick enough when she came in.” 

Bill sighed and nodded. So, it wasn’t a matter of Jake keeping it from him then. He could live with that. But now he had more important questions. “What happened?” Jake knew he meant after he was hit, so he updated him on everything. When he told him that Jimmy had been taking care of everything, Bill shook his head. “You’ve been here the whole time?” he asked incredulously. It was only then that he noticed that Jake was wearing scrubs which bore that out. Jake nodded. “I’ll be fine. You need to go take care of the town.”

Jake shook his head. “Jimmy will let me know if he needs me and then I won’t hesitate to go, but as long as I can be spared, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Bill huffed sleepily. “Idiot.”

Jake chuckled and kissed his forehead. “But I’m your idiot. Get some sleep, babe. I’ll be here as much as I can be,” he promised and Bill nodded as he drifted off. 

The next time Gail came in to check on Bill she smiled at Jake. “He’s doing much better. It’s still too soon to say for certain, but I think he’s going to pull through.” Jake let out a heavy breath and grinned. He’d been feeling better since Bill woke up really, but hearing that helped a lot. The next thing he knew a bundle was being handed to him. “I had your brother bring you some clothes so you could change.”

“You didn’t tell him…”

Gail shook her head. “You and I are going to talk about secrets later, but it’s not my secret to tell,” she told him and Jake winced, but nodded gratefully at her as he slipped into the bathroom to change.


	10. Chapter 10

It wasn’t long after that before Jake heard a knock at the door and moved away from Bill’s side and leaned against the wall just in time for Gail to open the door and Jimmy followed her in. “How is he?” Jimmy asked Jake in a whisper. 

“Still fighting. He woke up for a little bit earlier, but wasn’t awake for long,” Jake told him. “How are things at the station?” 

“It’s good. Nothing major happening. I figured I’d stop by on my way home,” Jimmy told him. 

Jake got the hint that he wasn’t planning to stay. Not that Jake was surprised. His wife and kids would probably worry if he was too late. Especially after what happened this morning. “When he wakes up again, I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

Jimmy nodded gravely, watching the bed. He’d never seen Bill so still. He had a new appreciation for what Bill had gone through when he was hurt in the New Bern War. “Thanks, Jake. I’ll try and stop by again tomorrow.”

The next time Bill woke up, he was awake for a little longer, and Kenchi was there so Jake kept his distance until he left before he rushed over to Bill’s bedside. The first thing Bill said was, “At least you left long enough to change.”

Jake chuckled sheepishly. “Actually, Mom brought me some clothes.”

Bill rolled his eyes. He may have been making a good show of it, but he loved that Jake hadn’t left him. This was his first time being seriously shot, and he was more than a little scared. Having Jake by his side meant everything. Still… “You know people are going to get suspicious if you stay here all the time right?” 

Jake shrugged. “I don’t care.”

Bill sighed. “Jake…” He really didn’t want to end up having to come out to the whole town. 

Jake frowned as he thought about it and knew that Bill was right. “Okay. I know. How about this. I’ll stay until you’re out of the woods. Kenchi said the first twenty-four hours was critical. After that, I’ll go back to work and all, but I’ll be here at night and then only my mother would notice and since she already knows…”

Bill nodded. He could live with that. “Okay. Good. So, about her knowing though. She won’t tell anyone right?” 

Jake shook his head. “No. She won’t. But she is going to try and get me to.”

“I’m not coming out to the town, Jake,” Bill laid it out plainly. 

Jake nodded. “I agree with you. I’m nowhere near ready for that either. And if you want to keep the circle closed then I will fight her on it, but it might be easier to find some middle ground that we can all live with.”

Bill considered it for a moment. “What kind of middle ground?” 

Jake thought about it. “Immediate family?” 

“So Eric and Mary?” Bill asked. He might could handle that. 

Jake nodded. “Yeah. And, if we’re telling anyone, Emily probably deserves to know, after everything.”

Bill sighed. “And if we’re telling Emily we should probably tell Jimmy too. And Gray.”

“Gray?” Jake asked confused. “Why Gray?” 

Bill shrugged and then winced. “Because you were right before. Us being together is very much against the rules. If we tell him outright then we have a chance to talk him around, but if he finds out elsewhere first, the shit is going to hit the fan.”

Jake gave a heavy sigh. “Yeah. That makes sense. But that’s it. It’s really more people than I’m comfortable with knowing, but I can live with that.” 

“Same here on all counts. Better to compromise from the start than get painted into a corner later,” Bill reasoned. Jake agreed and reached out a hand to card through Bill’s hair and Bill instinctively leaned into the touch. “We need to consider what we’re going to do if Gray can’t be talked around.”

Jake looked seriously at him. “Nothing to do. I’ll give up the badge before I give you up.” 

Bill smiled warmly at that. “Thank you, but I’ll be the one giving up the badge in that case.”

Jake shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. You love being a cop. I don’t really care.”

“But you are needed far more than I am. I did okay as sheriff, but not like you. You inspire people in a way I never could. I love being a cop to help people and protect people and I can still do that. I’m still a Ranger and you make the rules there so there won’t be any issue. It’ll just free me up to help more on border patrol,” Bill reasoned. 

Jake shook his head again. “Still…”

Bill squeezed his hand. “Jake,” he said seriously, and Jake stopped and looked at him. “I do /not/ want to be sheriff, and if you leave, I’m the best option, so you don’t leave, okay?” 

Jake sighed heavily. “Okay. Fine. But we aren’t going to let it go easily. Deal?” 

Bill smiled warmly. “Deal.” Jake leaned over for a gentle kiss and Bill tangled a hand in his hair, holding their foreheads together when it ended. “I love you, Jake,” he whispered. It wasn’t something they said to each other often, but after this…it needed to be said. 

Jake smiled and pressed another short kiss to Bill’s lips. “I love you too, Bill.” It seemed that was the cue for Gail to come in and they instinctively jumped apart, but Jake didn’t let go of Bill’s hand this time.

Bill gave Gail a nervous smile and she smiled back at him. “How are you feeling, Bill?” 

“Not too bad. Sore, weak, hungry, still a little cold.” He knew exactly what she needed to know. He’d had enough first aid training to know that much, and he also knew that being hungry was as much of a good sign as being cold was a bad one. 

She nodded as she finished checking his vitals. “Well your vitals are starting to bounce back and you’re getting stronger. I’ll talk to Kenchi and see if we can’t get you something light to eat, okay?” She squeezed his other hand softly and he nodded gratefully. She left and then was back ten minutes later with a bowl of soup for Bill and a tray of real food for Jake. “You need to eat too,” she told Jake who nodded and she left them to it. 

Bill managed to get a little more than half of the soup eaten before he was falling asleep again and Jake moved the tray away before finishing his own. The next time Gail came in she took the trays away and checked over Bill before moving behind Jake and wrapping her arms around him. “How long are you going to stay here, honey?” 

“Until he’s out of the woods. Then I’ll leave long enough to go back to work,” Jake told her. 

She nodded. She could understand that. And she also caught what he didn’t say. That unless he was working he was going to be here. “I’m getting ready to leave for the night so someone else will be coming to check on him every hour.” Jake nodded his understanding. In other words, he would have to be more careful. “I’ll have a cot brought up for you.” 

Jake shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I doubt I’ll sleep and if I do, it won’t be the first time I’ve slept in a chair.”

“Honey, you really should…”

“And what kind of message do you think bringing a cot up here would send?” Jake pointed out and Gail sighed but nodded. She was really starting to hate this secret, but had promised herself that she wouldn’t talk to him about it until it was certain that Bill would survive. He had enough on his mind right now. 

Over the course of the night, Jake dozed off a few times, but never for very long before one of the nurses came in. He missed Bill waking up at one point though. Bill just smiled at him and let him sleep, going back to sleep himself. It was lunchtime the next day before Bill was officially out of the woods and he happened to be awake at the time, so Jake stuck around for another half hour until he started nodding off before he kissed him softly and headed into the station. He was immediately besieged by half the department and gave them the good news and no one looked more relieved than Jimmy. 

Gail switched to the night shift for the duration of Bill’s stay in the hospital. That way she could at least make sure Jake got some sleep too. And it kept any other nurses from looking too closely at the fact that Jake spent every night there. The first night after he went back to work, she cornered him before he got to Bill’s room. “We need to talk about you keeping this a secret.”

Jake sighed at her. “I know. And we agreed that we will tell Eric, Mary, Emily, Jimmy, and Gray, and that’s it. That way the family knows. Our closest friends know, and our boss knows. Can you live with that?” Gail nodded. She didn’t like it being secret at all, but as long as the family knew that was all she really cared about.


	11. Chapter 11

Bill was awake when Jake came in and met him with a grin. Jake walked over and gave him a short kiss and pulled back just in time because Jimmy wasn’t far behind him. At least he knocked before he came in so Jake had time to move, but he looked at Bill questioningly and Bill nodded slightly. Before either of them could say anything though, Jimmy said, “Hey Bill. I’m glad to see you awake. I came by yesterday but you were sleeping. Jake said he’d tell you when you woke up again.” 

“Yeah, Jimmy. He did. Thanks for stopping by,” Bill cut him off, knowing that was the only way to get a word in edgewise with Jimmy. “And actually I have something to tell you,” he said looking pointedly at Jake who stepped closer again and took his hand. This would be the easy one for Bill. Jimmy at least knew he was gay even if he had never known who Bill was seeing before. 

Jimmy blinked for a second at their joined hands before he shrugged. “I kinda figured.”

“You did?” Jake asked shocked. If Jimmy could figure it out, who else had. 

He looked at Bill. “You stopped hanging out at my house as much which usually means you’re dating someone. I didn’t realize who it was until I saw Jake’s reaction when you got shot and the fact that he didn’t leave your side until you were cleared. Then I thought about the timeline and it matched up to when Jake got back to town. I gotta say, it is pretty surprising though. I mean, who would’ve thought that you of all people would be gay,” he looked at Jake during the last part. 

Bill was the one to interrupt Jimmy again. “So you’re good with it? Even though Jake’s our boss?” 

Jimmy just shrugged again. “Hasn’t affected anything at the station so why wouldn’t I be?” 

Jake breathed a sigh of relief. Jimmy may have been the easy one for Bill, but he was one of the hard ones for Jake. Jimmy was a very much by the books cop. The sheriff dating one of his deputies was very much /not/ by the book, but it seemed like his friendship was more important. Plus it seemed like the only way Jimmy had figured it out was the fact that he already knew Bill’s secret and was so familiar with his patterns. Their secret should be safe with anyone else as long as no one else noticed him sticking around in the hospital too much. 

Jimmy didn’t stay long and once he was gone Jake grinned and sat down in the chair, pressing his lips to Bill’s hand. “So, that went well.”

Bill chuckled. “That was the easy one.” 

“Did you want to be there when we tell the others or should I go ahead and do that when I get a chance.”

“I want to be there for Gray. Eric and Emily it doesn’t matter. I’m not so sure about telling Mary though,” Bill told him. 

“Why not?” Jake narrowed his eyes curiously. 

“Well, she runs the bar. Everyone knows she talks a lot. Plus, I mean, she’s not really family anyway,” Bill said defensively. 

Jake sighed. “Not technically, but she and Eric are together and even living together. I can’t ask him to keep a secret like that from her. If anyone asked me to keep a secret like that from you, I wouldn’t do it, so how can I ask that of him?” 

Bill blinked at that statement. Not only was Jake putting their relationship on the same level with Eric and Mary, but, “You wouldn’t keep a secret from me?” 

“If it was extremely important that you not know, like life or death important, then yeah, but otherwise, no. I wouldn’t,” Jake told him honestly. “And Mary can keep a secret as well as anyone. Better than most even. She’s good at getting secrets from other people, but she doesn’t spill them.”

Bill sighed. Jake made a good point. “Okay. You can tell Eric, Mary, and Emily, and we’ll tell Gray together. But that one won’t be until I’m out of here and up and around again.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake told him as he leaned over for a kiss. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about telling people. Telling people made it more real, and as much as he loved that fact when it came to their relationship, he wasn’t so sure how he felt about it when it came to himself. He had come to terms with the fact that he was gay, but he wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea yet. Then again, this may be exactly what he needed to get comfortable with the idea. The support of his family and friends. Assuming they did support him that was and that was never a given. 

When Bill fell asleep soon after that, Jake decided that he needed to do this tonight or it would drive him to distraction until he knew. He found his mother and let her know what he was going to do and told her that he would be back as soon as he could and if Bill woke up again to let him know that please. When she agreed he left and made his way for Bailey’s. It was packed tonight and he was lucky in that all three of the people he was looking for were there. 

Jake grabbed Emily from the booth and then went to get Eric and Mary from behind the bar. Mary took a minute to grab someone else to watch the bar before they headed into the back room. Jake double checked for eavesdroppers before he turned to them and said, “I need to tell you guys something.”

Eric looked at him worriedly. “What’s wrong? Are we in danger?” 

Jake shook his head. He should have known doing it like this would give them the wrong idea, but it was this or drive himself crazy worrying about it. “No, no. Nothing like that. This is something personal. Something you should all know, but is a secret from most everyone else, okay?” 

Eric looked confused but nodded. “You know you can trust us,” Emily told him. “What is it?” 

Jake took a deep breath for courage before saying, “I’m gay.”

They all just blinked at him for a long moment before Eric said, “You’re…gay…” 

Jake nodded. “I’m gay and in a relationship with Bill.” More silence met him at that pronouncement. “Someone say something.”

“Since when?” Emily asked incredulously. 

“Bill and I have been together for about a month. I came to terms with the fact that I’m gay while I was in Texas,” Jake told them. 

Eric caught that wording, which wasn’t surprising since he was a lawyer and all. “You came to terms with it, but how long have you known?” 

Jake winced. “That’s a hard question to answer. There was an incident in high school that made me realize that I might be and I freaked out and was running from it ever since, but then all this…everything we’ve been through in the last fourteen months since the bombs…I’ve kind of had to take a good hard look at myself and I realized that life is too short to live a lie.”

“An incident in high school. What kind of incident?” Emily asked suspiciously, knowing that they had been together in high school. 

“Can we talk about that part later…alone?” Jake asked hopefully and she nodded curtly so Jake looked back at Eric and Mary who seemed to be having a conversation with facial expressions. “Guys?” 

Mary made her first foray into the conversation. “Do you love him?” 

Jake didn’t even hesitate before he said, “Yes.”

That was enough to quell the last of Eric’s objections to this. If he even had any right to object in the first place which was questionable. Jake had never answered that question about anyone with so little hesitation. “Then I wish you all the best, brother,” Eric said before pulling him into a hug before he was passed off to Mary for the same treatment and he could almost feel the tension rolling off him. “I do hope you plan to tell mom too though.”

Jake laughed. “Mom already knows. She’s the one who convinced me to tell you. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind when Bill was hurt and got careless. I’m just glad she was the one that caught me and not someone else.”

Eric chuckled at that. “Well that’s a good thing then. And I’m glad that Bill’s gonna be okay, too.” He looked between Jake and Emily who had still yet to say another word. “We’ll give you two some time,” he said as he pulled Mary back out to the front. 

Jake turned back to Emily once they were alone and she asked again. “What kind of incident?” 

Jake sighed. “It’s a long story and it’s really bad, but just please try to remember that I’m not that guy anymore?” Emily deflated a bit and nodded, but still very clearly expected an explanation. “I found out that one of the guys in our class was gay and I blackmailed him into meeting me under the bleachers. I planned to butter him up to get him to suck me off, so I kissed him and it ended up being a makeout session plus some. Then I freaked and ran off.”

Emily thought for a few minutes before she said. “It was a few months before the end of senior year wasn’t it?” 

Jake blinked in surprise but nodded. “How did you…”

“Bill started avoiding you about that time and you proposed to me about a week after he started avoiding you. I remember because I was thinking it was too bad that you had a fight with one of your best friends and he couldn’t celebrate with us. So it was Bill, wasn’t it?”

Jake winced. He had forgotten that he proposed to Emily right after that happened. He really had been a little idiot. “Yeah. It was.” 

“So even then, you had a thing for him,” she said still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the guy she’d been with for most of twenty years was gay and had been in love with someone else the whole time.

Jake shook his head. “No. Not really. I mean, maybe, yeah, deep down, but I didn’t even realize it myself until recently. After that happened I just tried to pretend that it didn’t. I’m sorry Emily. Really.”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Was that the only time? Did you ever cheat on me any other time?” 

“Yes, it was the only time. I never cheated on you before or after that. Please believe me,” Jake told her. 

She sighed. “I do believe you, Jake.” 

“And can you forgive me?” he asked hopefully. 

She considered it for a moment before she nodded. “Yeah. I do. It was a very long time ago, and like you said. You’re not that guy anymore. It still doesn’t change all the good things we had together, and you’re still the guy who’s been one of my best friends since we were in diapers, so yeah. I forgive you.” She went over and hugged him. 

“Thank you,” he said relieved. 

“And I’m glad you’ve finally figured out what makes you happy,” she added before she let him go. 

“Thanks, Em,” he said again. “Now I need to get back to the hospital…”

“Yeah. Of course. Go. Your man needs you,” she grinned and gave him a playful shove. He chuckled and headed out.


	12. Chapter 12

It was almost a week before Bill was released from the hospital and Jake decided to stay with him until he was back on his feet. They were using the patrol car to get him home since Kenchi didn’t want him on a horse for at least a few more days. As Gail was helping Jake get Bill into the car, she looked looked sternly at Jake and said, “Remember, Jake. No strenuous activity,” with a pointed look. 

Jake’s eyes widened. “Mom!” 

“Just making sure you remember,” she turned back to go inside and managed to hold in her chuckle until she was in the building and turned to see Jake driving away. 

Jake helped Bill inside and to the couch before going to take the car back to the station and then taking his horse back to Bill’s. Thankfully there was nothing eye-brow raising about a friend staying with another inured friend to help him out, so they didn’t have to try and hide the fact that Jake was staying there. 

Bill insisted that Jake go to work. It was only a ten minute walk to the station. Less on horseback. He could come by and check in from time to time. Jake agreed when Bill agreed to keep a radio on him and call if he needed help. Jake limited himself to checking on Bill once a day at lunchtime. Bill wasn’t exactly up to standing at a stove to cook lunch anyway. It was a few days later when Gail came into the station and pulled Jake into his office and closed the door behind her. “Mom? What is it?” 

She smiled at him and asked, “Is Bill coming for thanksgiving?” 

Jake goggled at her for a moment. “Do what?” 

“Everyone who will be there knows about the two of you, and it would be nice to have him there. You did invite him didn’t you?” she asked. 

“Um…no…we’ve only been together for just over a month, Mom,” Jake pointed out. 

“Psh. I’ve seen you two together in the hospital. You’re a lot more serious than you’re letting on. Besides, you’ve known the guy since kindergarten, and he’s been a good friend of the family ever since. Hell, he’s even spent thanksgiving with us a few times before. Invite him or I will,” she said firmly, but kindly. 

Jake sighed. She made very good points. And Jake wasn’t against it in any way. He just didn’t know if Bill was ready for all that spending thanksgiving with the family implied in their new circumstances. At least he knew that if he invited him, Bill would be given the option to say no, so he agreed to invite him. Over dinner that night after he got back to Bill’s house, he bit the bullet. “So you’ve been invited to the Green house for thanksgiving.”

Bill dropped his fork in surprise. “I…huh?” 

Jake shrugged. “Mom pointed out that it wouldn’t be the first thanksgiving you’ve spent with us,” he tried to keep it nonchalant. 

“Yeah, but this is a very different situation,” Bill said pointedly. 

Jake sighed. “I know.”

“Well…what do you think about it?” Bill asked as he tried to figure out what he thought himself. 

“I think…I’d like it if you came…but I’d understand if you didn’t,” Jake said nervously. 

Bill let out a long breath. “Then I’ll come.” He wasn’t sure this was the best idea, but it had to be done eventually, and Jake was right when he said that life was too short. He would take what he was offered and hold on with both hands. 

Jake packed his bag to go back home for thanksgiving a few days later. Bill was on his feet now and would even be back at work after the holiday. Desk duty only for a few weeks, but he would be there. He was also cleared to ride again so they took the horses to the Green house after a light lunch to tide them over until dinner. Bill laughed as they played football. It was Jake and Emily against Eric and Mary. Bill would have loved to play, but he was relegated to being the referee due to his injuries. 

There wasn’t a whole lot of PDA over the course of the day, neither of them being comfortable with that, but there was some. A touch of hands, a brush of the face, a squeeze to a shoulder. It was a nice relaxing day. It was just after dinner and they were all just mingling when he decided to pull Emily aside. “Are you really okay with Jake and me?” he asked. It had been driving him crazy. 

Emily chuckled. “Of course I am. I mean, I wasn’t exactly /happy/ about what happened in high school, but…” 

“Jake told you about that?!” Bill hissed in a whisper turning to glare at Jake. When Emily nodded, Bill turned back to the rest of the group and grabbed Jake’s arm, pulling him into the other room. “You told her? About what happened in school?” 

Jake blinked, surprised that it was an issue. “Well…yeah. I mean…she deserved to know…” 

“The hell she did,” Bill snapped. “The whole point of you blackmailing me in the first place was to keep it all secret! That was private!”

“I-I’m sorry, Bill. I didn’t think it would matter. I mean, it was so long ago and…” Jake trailed off as Bill stormed out, slamming the front door and they all heard the hoofbeats trailing away. 

There was a long silence from the living room before Eric said, “Yep. Now it’s a holiday.” There was always a fight between someone on a holiday. That was usually Johnston’s line, but he decided that if no one else was going to say it, then he would. Jake just gave him a withering look before he stormed upstairs and slammed his own door. 

The next day at the station, Bill’s first day back, was tense. The managed to keep their vow not to let their personal lives affect their work, if only barely. Their conversation was stilted, their comradery nearly nil, but they spoke in normal tones when it was warranted and stayed out of each other’s way otherwise. They both caught a few worried looks from Jimmy, but no one else seemed to even notice. 

Jake knew that he couldn’t keep this up though. They needed to talk about this. He wasn’t giving up on Bill without a fight. Work was not the place to do that though, so he waited until they were done before heading to Bill’s house not long after he’d left. Bill had rushed out of there the second it was time and Jake still had a few things to finish up first so he was about fifteen minutes behind him. He knocked on the door and heard a clipped, “Go away, Jake.” 

“Not gonna happen,” Jake called back. “We need to talk about this. One way or another it has to be settled, but we can’t leave things up in the air like this.”

Bill growled when he realized that Jake had a point and wrenched the door open. “Fine.” As soon as Jake was inside he slammed the door behind him. “You went and told people about the most humiliating moment of my life, without even telling me, and after you swore to never tell. And then you ‘didn’t think it would matter’?” 

Jake blinked at him for a second. “I didn’t tell her anything about /you/ from that day. Not really. I told her what /I/ did. And not even all of it in any kind of detail.”

Bill narrowed his eyes. “What exactly /did/ you tell her, then?” Jake recited the story he’d told Emily, nearly word for word and Bill felt his anger deflating. Not a word about Bill coming in his pants and having to walk around like that the rest of the day. Nothing about how Jake just walked away laughing afterwards. He plopped down on the couch and motioned Jake to sit. “I’m sorry, Jake. I over-reacted. I thought…”

Jake reached out and put a hand on Bill’s and gave it a squeeze. “I know. It’s okay. I just wish you had let me explain. I wish you had trusted me a little more. I confess my own sins, not yours. Not that you had any that day, but you know what I mean.” 

Bill sighed and squeezed Jake’s hand back. “I /do/ trust you. It’s just…that day has always been a sore spot for me. In so many ways. I’m not exactly rational about it.”

Jake nodded. “I didn’t realize it still bothered you so much or I would have told you.”

“I’m still sorry I blew up at you. You know my temper gets away with me sometimes,” Bill said sadly. 

Jake chuckled. “That’s an understatement,” he teased. When Bill didn’t really relax, he said seriously, “I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me?” 

Bill looked up and smiled as he nodded. “Deal.” 

Jake leaned over for a kiss, pulling Bill close but not tightly enough to aggravate his still healing injury. When the kiss ended, he said softly, “I love you, Bill.”

Bill smiled and rested his head on Jake’s shoulder. “I love you too, Jake.”


	13. Chapter 13

Jake and Bill decided to talk to Gray the next day so when they went into the station they went detoured to the mayor’s office first. “Gray, can we talk to you?” Jake asked. 

Gray waved them in and looked up from the reports he was working on. “What’s up guys?” he asked worriedly. 

Jake looked at Bill, who nodded at him. It would be better for Jake to handle this. Gray respected him a lot more. “Well…we just thought you should know…that Bill and I are together.” 

Gray blinked at them in surprise for a moment before looking from one to the other and deciding that they were serious. “Okay,” he said turning back to his work. 

They were both rather taken aback at the response, or lack of one. “Okay? That’s it?” Jake asked in shock. 

Gray sighed and looked up. “What do you want me to say? The world basically ended out there. What’s left of this country is in the middle of another civil war. Jericho is completely cut off from anyone and anything else. I’m just trying to keep this town together. I think we have bigger fish to fry than to worry about who’s sleeping with who. Tell me it won’t affect the job, that’s all I need to know.”

“It won’t affect the job,” Bill said seriously. 

“You have our word,” Jake added. 

“Good enough for me,” Gray said. “So get to work.”

Jake’s lips twitched in amusement as he said, “Yes, sir,” and he and Bill left the office. Once they were in the hall, both of them let out a chuckle. “Well that went well.”

Bill shook his head amusedly. “A lot better than I expected.” 

It wasn’t long after they got there before Gail was coming in and found Jake in his office. “Mom?” he asked worriedly. “What is it?”

She came in and closed the door behind her. “I just wanted to check on you. After your fight with Bill, you were up and gone before dawn and then you didn’t come home last night…”

Jake sighed. “Yeah, sorry. I kinda followed Bill home last night and we talked and got everything worked out and then it was late and I just didn’t feel like riding all the way home.”

Gail nodded. “Okay, honey. I get that. I just wanted to check in on my way to the med center.” She was back on days now and she really had been worried about Jake. She knew how much Bill meant to him and he didn’t have the tendency to be the most stable person when he was overly emotional. 

Jake nodded and gave her a hug before she left. He really did love that his mother cared, but he could certainly do without her worrying. He supposed it could be worse though. She could be running all over town looking for him at all hours of the day and night or demanding to know where he was at any given time. He could live with checking in. 

While Gail was talking to Jake, Jimmy had cornered Bill well away from any prying ears. “So you and Jake are okay?” he asked concerned. 

“What do you mean?” Bill asked. 

“Well yesterday, you were both pretty cold to each other, but I noticed you came in together today and don’t seem to be as cranky.”

Bill sighed. Even he sometimes fell into the trap of forgetting just how observant Jimmy could be. “Yeah, Jimmy. We had a little misunderstanding, but it’s all worked out now.”

Jimmy gave a sigh of relief. He knew what Jake meant to Bill and picking up the pieces of that would not be fun. “Okay. Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

“Was it really that bad yesterday?” Bill asked worriedly, wondering if anyone else noticed. 

Jimmy shrugged. “Only if you knew what to look for. To everyone else you probably just seemed tired or cranky in general.” 

Bill nodded, relieved. “Thanks Jimmy.”

That night as they left the station, Jake asked Bill if he wanted to go hang out at Bailey’s and Bill looked at him like he was insane. “I don’t mean like a date type thing. I mean like two guys hanging out. We can grab Eric and maybe a few other people and make it a group thing.” Bill still looked uncomfortable with the idea so Jake said, “Never mind. It’s fine. I’ll come by your place a little later?” he asked hopefully. Actually going home with him would be a little too telling, so he usually just swung by after dark when no one would notice with the exception of yesterday. 

“Yeah, okay, Jake. See you then,” Bill said cheerfully and Jake headed into Bailey’s. He would still hang out for a while and it didn’t take him long to spot Stanley and headed over to chat. 

“How are Mimi and the baby doing?” Jake asked. 

Stanley chuckled. “They’re both good, but apparently I’m hovering too much.” Since the fields had been harvested, there hadn’t been as much to do out at the ranch and Mimi quickly got fed up with Stanley being underfoot all the time so kicked him out to ‘go have fun’. 

Jake laughed. “I’m not surprised at all.” Stanley responded by giving him a shove. A few hours later, Jake headed out and snuck to Bill’s. Not that it required a whole lot of sneaking. This late, pretty much anyone who wasn’t at home was in Bailey’s. The nights were way too cold to be mingling much in the streets. 

Once Bill had let him in and he had shucked his shoes and coat, he plopped on the couch, pulling Bill to his side and kissing him softly. “Can we talk?” Jake asked. 

Bill felt his heart sink even as he said, “Yeah, of course.”

“It’s just…you still seem uncomfortable with the idea of anyone knowing about us and I can’t figure out why,” Jake told him. 

Bill looked confusedly at him. “Are you saying you’re actually comfortable with it?” 

Jake shrugged. “I’m not saying I would be comfortable with the whole town knowing, but family and closest friends…I mean, since they’re good with it, I’m good with them knowing.”

Bill sighed. “That’s all well and good for you, but you’re not the one who will have to deal with the looks of pity once you’re gone again. Or the anger and blame for you leaving even.”

Jake blinked in surprise. “Leaving? Who said anything about me leaving?” 

Bill rolled his eyes. “Come on, Jake. We all know that small town life isn’t for you. Eventually, this war is going to be over and things will be back to normal and you’ll be off looking for excitement and adventure again like you always do. And we both know that I don’t have an adventurous bone in my body. I could never leave Jericho. This town is my whole life.”

Jake pulled Bill into a slow, sweet kiss, pouring everything he felt for the man into it before pulling back. “I’m not going anywhere, Bill. Period. Even when things get back to normal. I’ve had my fill of excitement and adventure and I’m not running away from anything anymore. This town is where I’m going to stay, from now on. And only part of that is because I can’t give you up. I know you would never leave here and I would never ask you to. And I wouldn’t go anywhere without you. Got it?” 

Bill sighed and looked away, “You think that way now, but…”

Jake pulled him back around to look at him. “I think that way always, Bill. You know…when I was headed back here from Texas, you know I was walking for weeks. You know what kept me going out there? The thought that kept me walking every day when I was exhausted and hungry and could easily have found a nice town to rest in for a while. It was you. I had to see you. I had to know that you were okay. The last I knew you were being hunted along with the rest of the Rangers. I had to tell you how I felt. I couldn’t risk dying without you knowing that I loved you.”

Bill looked searchingly at Jake, trying to see the truth in his eyes, before he gave a slight hopeful smile and pulled Jake in for a kiss. He still didn’t completely believe it. He still thought that eventually Jake would get bored again and take off, but now he at least had a little hope that he wouldn’t.


	14. Chapter 14

It wasn’t long before Bill pulled Jake up and towards the bedroom and they immediately began to strip each other. It had been almost three weeks since they’d been together. The few days before Bill got shot had been incredibly busy, and then the two and a half weeks since then had obviously been out of the question, but Bill was healed up a little bit now. They would still need to be careful, but they needed each other right now. Bill pushed Jake down on the bed and straddled his lap, still kissing him passionately, shirts having been shed along the way. When Bill ground his hips down over Jake’s they both moaned, but Jake pulled out of the kiss and asked breathlessly, “Are you sure you’re okay for this?” 

Bill nodded. “Long as we’re careful, yeah,” he replied as his hands moved to the front of Jake’s pants and quickly stripped them both before he was over top of Jake again. He wanted to do things differently this time. He wanted Jake to see things from the other side too. As his lips trailed over Jake’s neck and shoulders and chest, one hand reached behind himself to start opening himself up, but Jake didn’t notice. Not only could he not see, but he was more concerned with other things than what Bill’s other hand was doing. 

It wasn’t long before Bill was slicking up Jake’s cock and Jake’s eyes widened. “Bill?” 

“I want to feel you inside me, Jake,” he said breathlessly, and waited until he got a nod from Jake before he dropped himself of Jake’s hard cock with a moan. 

“Oh…god…Bill…” Jake panted trying not to just slam up into him, but completely lost in the tight heat around him. Bill took a moment to adjust before he leaned down to kiss Jake deeply as he started rocking his hips and one of Jake’s hands tangled in his hair as the other one trailed lightly over his back. Jake was trying not to hold him too tightly and aggravate his wound as he met Bill’s pace with rolls of his own hips. 

The kiss ended, and Jake held Bill’s forehead against his own as their panting breaths mingled in the space between them. This wasn’t just the first time Jake had been inside him. This was also the first time they had done this face to face. They had been too busy to have a particularly active sex life even before Bill got shot almost three weeks ago. It stayed slow and sweet for a while before Bill sat up on his knees and started moving harder and faster. Lifting and dropping on Jake’s cock as Jake’s hand went to Bill’s cock to stroke him, knowing he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. 

Jake kept his eyes locked with Bill’s as Bill rode him, and when he felt himself getting close he gasped out, “Gonna…cum…Bill.” He figured with how Bill had wanted to pull out the first time, he should give him the option here, but Bill just nodded. 

“Me too, Jake,” he panted as he rode him harder and faster as they both chased the edge. Jake came first, by about a second and the feeling of Jake’s cock pulsing inside him was enough to push Bill over the edge too and he spurted over Jake’s stomach and chest, still with their eyes locked and they got their first look at each other’s faces as they came. Once they were both spent he sat there for another couple minutes catching his breath as Jake’s hand reached up to brush over his cheek and through his hair and Bill leaned into the touch. 

Bill pulled off Jake’s softening cock and laid down with a wince on his back next to him. Jake noticed the wince and quickly asked, “Are you okay?” even as he was leaning over to check the wound. 

Bill twitched away from his touch when he got too close and said, “I’m okay. A little sore, but I don’t think I hurt anything.” He made sure to point out that /he/ was the one who would have been the cause of the damage. The last thing he wanted was for Jake to blame himself for Bill being hurt worse. 

Jake didn’t look completely convinced, but let it go. “Okay. But if it feels any worse later, I’m taking you to Kenchi, okay?”

Bill nodded. He could live with that. He didn’t exactly want to die either, and he could think up some story of what happened if it was necessary. He was sure it wouldn’t be necessary though. It really did just feel a little sore. Now that was settled, his slight insecurity was settling in. He had never actually done that before. Usually on the rare times he bottomed he was actually /on/ the bottom. He turned to look at Jake and reached up a hand to brush a lock of sweaty hair from his forehead. “Was that okay?” 

Jake chuckled slightly and nodded. “That was amazing. I mean, I think I still like the other way better, but this was awesome too.”

Bill breathed a sigh of relief. Part of the reason he had waited so long for this was because he was afraid that Jake would like it too much. “Yeah. Me too. On both counts,” he said with a grin. 

Jake curled up to his good side and rested his head on Bill’s shoulder as his hand trailed over Bill’s body, avoiding the wound, and Bill’s hands took their own exploration as they slowly fell asleep. The next morning Bill left for the station first and Jake waited another ten minutes. It wouldn’t do for them to go in together too often. It would raise too many eyebrows if people noticed. 

Over the course of the next month, Jake was spending at least a few nights a week at Bill’s. Now that Eric and Mary knew, he was keeping his horse tied up at the bar and just making the five-minute walk to and from Bill’s house. He figured people would assume he was splitting his time between his mother’s house and his brother’s and Eric and Mary would back up that story. By the time Christmas was rolling around, Jake was getting antsy though. He wanted more, but had no idea how to ask for it or even what Bill wanted. He decided to wait until after the holiday to bring it up. 

There was a big town-wide Christmas eve party in the center of town. People were in and out of town hall and Bailey’s and a few other places. Grills were going in the streets and tables were packed everywhere. Jake and all the deputies were taking turns watching the office and ‘working’ the party, which essentially meant have fun but keep an eye open for trouble. Christmas morning, Bill had been talked into spending with the Green’s again and it just made Jake even more determined that they needed to talk. He was getting in way over his head and if this was as far as it was going to go, then he needed to know now. 

This time, the holiday passed without a fight between Bill and Jake, but Eric and Gail had a bit of a blow-up. There weren’t a lot of gifts to go around, but that wasn’t the point of the whole thing anyway. They spent an enjoyable morning and then had a nice lunch before Eric and Mary headed back to the bar and Bill went home. Once it was just the two of them, Gail motioned Jake to sit next to her on the couch and asked him. “What’s on your mind, honey?” 

“What do you mean?” Jake asked. 

Gail smiled wryly at him. “Jake, I have been your mother for more than thirty-three years. When are you going to realize that you can’t hide things from me. Something is eating at you, and I just want to help.”

Jake sighed and nodded. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to talk to her about it, but he needed some advice from someone, and she would be the best person to give it. “It’s about Bill…”

Gail nodded. “What about him? Are you two having problems?” she asked worriedly. She hadn’t seen any signs of it, but you never knew what was beneath the surface. 

Jake shook his head. “No, Mom. Nothing like that. Just the opposite really. Things are great with us, but the thing is…” he trailed off as he tried to figure out how to say it and she waited patiently, squeezing his hand. “He seems perfectly content to leave things how they are and I just…” 

“You want more,” Gail said knowingly. She had known that Jake wouldn’t be able to keep something like this secret forever. He was very good at keeping the bad things secret for sure, but if he was happy, he wanted the whole world to know about it. She got a nod from Jake so she asked, “Do you /know/ that he’s happy with the way things are? That he doesn’t want more too? Have you talked to him about it?” 

Jake shook his head again. “No. I haven’t. I’m not even sure how..or if…” He couldn’t even bring himself to put words to his worst case scenario. 

Gail patted his hand. “Honey, that boy loves you. That much is as plain as day. He’s not going to throw you aside just because you want more. I don’t know what he’s going to say or how he’s going to react, but as long as you go in there willing to listen and talk it out, I don’t have a doubt in my mind that you two will get through it and find a solution.”

Jake breathed a sigh of relief. That was exactly what he needed to hear. He squeezed her hand gratefully. “Thank you, Mom.”


	15. Chapter 15

It was the day after Christmas when New Bern tried their next incursion. Probably figured they’d all be lazy after the holiday. They were about to get a surprise. Jake left Bill behind in the office this time, despite his protests. He was still on light duty recovering from the last confrontation. Technically, Jake probably should have made an exception since he would be back to full duty in three days, but he was following the letter of the rules here and if it kept Bill just a little bit safer, that was all the better. He had no intention of coddling his boyfriend, and he knew that Bill would never stand for it even if he tried, but as long as he had a good excuse he was going to use it. 

They came back from that encounter a little better than the last one. They’d had a little more warning, and time to set up proper barricades. There were two moderate injuries and a handful of minor ones, but no deaths or near deaths on their side, so Jake considered himself lucky. He was still dirty and more than a little bloody when he walked back into the station a few hours later, and Bill pulled him into a storage room. Everyone who saw assumed that Bill was planning to tear strips off him for leaving him behind, and they would have been partially right. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Bill pulled Jake into a searing kiss that Jake melted into happily. 

Once the kiss broke, Bill pulled back, resting his forehead against Jake’s. “I hate being left behind,” he said bitterly. 

“I know, babe,” Jake replied. “But would you have let me go if I was on the injured list?” 

Bill sighed. “Not unless you were desperately needed,” he admitted and he knew that he wasn’t in this case. 

Jake smiled and kissed him softly again. “I promise, I will never leave you behind when you’re fit to fight.”

Bill nodded. “I know. I guess I’ll have to live with that.” 

They jumped apart when there was a knock on the door and they headed out to see Jimmy there. “Sorry. The guys were talking about coming to get you two so I figured it was better if I volunteered.”

Jake and Bill gave him a grateful look. “Thanks, Jimmy.” They headed back into the main part of the station. Bill knew that was stupid. He hoped everyone figured that he was just yelling at Jake, but worried that they would wonder why he didn’t just do that in his office. His office had open windows to the whole station though. He just hadn’t been able to help himself after seeing Jake come back like that. After spending hours wondering if he was coming back at all. 

On Jake’s part, that encounter gave him a little hope that maybe his upcoming talk would be well-received. His good mood for the rest of the day was chalked up to the fact that they had come out of the encounter relatively unscathed. It wasn’t long before they left though that things started getting tense out there and they all ended up working late trying to keep people calm. It was always a little more difficult after one of these skirmishes. The townspeople were a lot less ‘coddled’ than they were before all this happened, but they still weren’t as hard as they needed to be to deal with this well. It took a few days for things to calm down enough for Jake and Bill to get any real time alone. 

Jake snuck over to Bill’s house well after dark, and plopped down on the couch, trying to figure out how to start this conversation. Bill could see that he had something on his mind though, and was getting nervous. “Jake? What’s up?” He was worried that Jake was upset about Bill’s actions the day of the skirmish. 

Jake looked at him and just blurted out what was on his mind, having failed to think of any other way to do it. “We should live together.” They spent at least half their nights together anyway. A good portion of Jake’s clothes had already migrated over. 

Bill sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head. “If we do that, it would be all but impossible keeping it a secret.”

“I know,” Jake told him pointedly. 

“You want to…no…uh-uh…no way,” Bill protested. 

“Why not?” Jake asked, fully prepared to do as his mother suggested and listen to his concerns and find a solution. 

“I’m not as brave as you are, Jake. Or as strong. I can’t take the whole town hating me,” Bill told him. 

“You can’t honestly think they would?” Jake said surprised. 

“You don’t know this town the way I do. You’ve always been practically royalty here, but the rest of us... I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love this town. I love the people. They’re great people, but they’re also very old fashioned about certain things,” Bill explained. 

“Two years ago I would have agreed with you, but this is a very different place than it was then. We’ve all been through so much and weathered so much. There’s no way they turn their backs on us for this,” Jake assured him. 

“You really think that everyone in town will actually be okay with us?” Bill asked incredulously. 

Jake shook his head. “No. Not everyone. There are assholes anywhere you go. But the town as a whole will be behind us. The rest of them can go screw themselves. 

Bill snorted derisively. “That’s all well and good for you. You’re the hero of Jericho. You can do no wrong. Me though…”

“You have been right there with me through everything,” Jake told him. “Granted we’ve had our differences of opinion, but every time real trouble came to this town you’ve been standing right beside me. You’re just as much of a ‘hero’ as I am, if not more, and everyone knows it. Besides, even if you were right, then you must know that I would use my influence to protect you too.” 

Bill shook his head. “Jake…”

Jake took both of Bill’s hands in his. “I get it, Bill. Really. But I love you, and I don’t care who knows it. Life’s too short to live a lie, remember?” 

Bill took a few deep breaths on the edge of panic as he nodded. “O-okay. Okay,” he said nervously. “So…how do we do this?” he asked, praying that Jake didn’t actually expect him to make a spectacle of this. 

Jake grinned widely and pulled Bill tightly against him happily. “I figure the best way would be to just tell the people who already know that it’s not a secret anymore and stop trying to hide it and let the word spread as it will. There’s no need to make a big announcement or production of it.” Jake didn’t think he could handle that either. He was just as nervous about ‘coming out’ as Bill was. He just thought it was worth it. 

Bill nodded. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that. But I think we need to tell Stanley ourselves first.” 

Jake nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. He’s been one of our best friends our whole lives. He probably should have known sooner, but he’s just…”

“Yeah. I know. But if we’re going to be letting the word spread, he should hear it from us.” 

“Okay so, what do you say we head down to Bailey’s and pull him aside and talk to him and then just hang out for a while. We can start officially moving me in tomorrow. Sound good?” Jake suggested. 

Bill closed his eyes and wiped his sweaty shaking hands on his pants. “Yeah. Okay. We can do that.” 

Jake looked worriedly at him. “We can give it a few days for you to get used to the idea if you need to,” Jake offered. 

Bill shook his head quickly. “No. That will just give me time to talk myself out of it and get even more freaked out. If we’re gonna do this it needs to be now.” Jake grinned and kissed Bill hard before getting up and practically dragging him for the door. Once they were outside, they dropped hands and walked towards Bailey’s. Jake went over to Mary and asked if they could use the backroom while Bill went to find Stanley. It was about five minutes before the three of them were ensconced back there. “What’s up?” Stanley asked worriedly. 

Jake couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact that everyone always seemed to be expecting some horrible news when they did this, but he supposed it was to be expected. Generally, these secret meetings meant they needed to plan for some disaster. “It’s nothing bad, Stanley. Not like you’re thinking. Just relax.”

As Stanley relaxed a bit, Bill said, “Jake and I have something we need to tell you, and please don’t freak out?” 

Stanley looked at them confused. “What is it and why would I freak out?” 

“We’re together,” Bill blurted out. He figured that Jake had done most of the work with everyone else, but Jimmy, so he could take this particular bull by the horns. 

Stanley blinked. “Yeah…all three of us are,” he said even more confused. 

Bill sighed and Jake jumped in to clarify. “He doesn’t mean together in this room Stanley. He mean’s together in a relationship,” he said as he reached out to squeeze Bill’s hand comfortingly, seeing that he was barely holding it together. 

Stanley’s eyes widened. “Oh! Well…but…I mean…I knew Bill was gay, but Jake?”

Bill did a double take at that. “Wait, you knew? How?” 

Stanley laughed. “Dude, we’ve been best friends since we were five. I’m not blind.”

“But…you never…never said anything…” Bill stammered. 

Stanley shrugged. “Wasn’t my business. I figured if you wanted me to know you’d tell me.” Bill was just speechless at that so Stanley turned to Jake. “Don’t know how I missed it with you though.”

Jake chuckled and shook his head amusedly. “I missed it with me too, Stanley. Don’t feel bad.” 

Stanley laughed. “Well…so…you two are together huh? That’s great.” 

“You’re okay with this?” Bill asked hopefully. 

“Of course. You’re my best friends. Anything that makes you happy is good with me. It’s not like either of you threw a fuss when I fell for a city girl,” Stanley said as though it should be obvious. 

Jake grinned and pulled Stanley into a hug and Stanley wrapped his other arm around Bill, so that he joined the hug. “You’re a good friend, Stanley,” Jake told him. 

“I know. You guys are lucky to have me,” Stanley joked and they all laughed as they separated.


	16. Chapter 16

“So I’m guessing this is all some big secret or something?” 

Jake shook his head. “Not anymore. We’re moving in together so we can’t actually keep it a secret much longer.”

Stanley goggled at them a moment. “Wait, you are? That’s amazing. How long have you two been together?” he asked shocked. 

“About two and a half months,” Bill told him. “Since Jake got back to town.”

Stanley clapped them both on the shoulder. “Well, congratulations.” 

“We don’t want to make a big thing out of it though Stanley. Just let the word spread naturally,” Jake told him, knowing that if he didn’t Stanley would go out there and buy the whole bar a round of drinks to ‘celebrate’. When Stanley agreed, they went back out into the bar and plopped down at the bar. Jake took the opportunity to tell Mary that the secret was no longer secret when she served them drinks. She grinned at them and nodded. 

Jake wanted to tell everyone about them moving in together at the same time so he told Mary to tell Eric to come to their mother’s house for dinner tomorrow night. They all knew that Gail wouldn’t mind. She loved having them all around the table. Over the course of the evening, Bill slowly started to relax, but always tensed up again every time that Jake brushed their hands together or squeezed his knee. Jake, for his part was trying to do those things enough to get Bill used to it, but not so much as to freak him out completely. 

It was after midnight when they left Bailey’s and went back to Bill’s place to crash. Tomorrow it would be ‘their’ place. It was a little while before they fell asleep, sated and happy. Bill’s sleep was restless though. He was still waiting for the axe to fall. The next morning when they went to the station, Bill was beyond paranoid. He just knew that the whole town knew already and was talking about them behind their backs. Jake chuckled at him and squeezed his shoulder. “Relax, would you. Whatever comes, we’ll handle it, but don’t go imagining things that aren’t there, okay?” 

Bill did his best to relax, and it only got more difficult when they told Jimmy he was free to talk. Jake was out on patrol today, and already planned to swing by the med center and check on things, but this time cornered his mother while he was there. “Hey, Mom. I invited Eric, Mary, and Bill over to dinner tonight. I hope that’s okay.” 

She patted his cheek. “Of course, honey. Any particular reason?”

Jake shrugged sheepishly. “Bill and I have some news.” 

“You’re moving in together,” she guessed. 

Jake goggled at her. “How did you…”

“Well obviously no one’s pregnant, and it’s not likely either of you are going to jump into marriage, even if you could. If you were just coming out in the open, that wouldn’t really require a family dinner, so that leaves only one option.”

Jake shook his head amusedly. “You’re good.”

Gail laughed. “I’ve had a lot of practice. Would you swing by the house on your rounds and pull some more meat out of the freezer? If we’re gonna have company, I don’t have enough thawing.”

Jake grinned and hugged her. “Sure, Mom. We’ll be by after we finish up at the station for the day.”

She hugged him back and kissed his cheek as he left. Jake finished his patrol a few hours later and made it back to the station and it ended up being a rather slow day, thankfully. Especially since his senior deputy was so on edge. They left together and headed towards the Green house, getting there about five minutes after Eric and Mary. They all helped Gail finish up dinner and get the table set and Jake waited until they were all eating before he dropped the news. “I’m moving in with Bill.” Bill visibly relaxed when there was congratulations all around and everyone seemed genuinely happy for them, even if Gail’s happiness was a little subdued. Living alone in this big house wasn’t something she much looked forward to, but she would never want to take away from her son’s happiness. 

After dinner, everyone helped Jake pack up his meager belongings and they were able to get it all on the horses rather than having to take a cart and Jake and Bill headed home. They had been spotted by a few people on the way, and it was noted that their horses were loaded down and heading to Bill’s house and that started the talk. The people in the know confirmed the rumors when they heard them, but it was still rather slow to spread. 

It was a few days later before he walked into the station after a patrol just in time to help break up a fight between Bill and another of the deputies. He sent them both to different corners, and despite the fact that he technically should have been the one to take Bill’s statement since he was the senior, he knew that it wouldn’t look good if the fight was about what he thought it was about so he went to talk to Gary, sending Jimmy to talk to Bill. Until he had a better pulse on things now that word was out, he didn’t know who else would be able to avoid setting Bill off again. 

He pulled up a chair in front of Gary and sat in it backwards. “You wanna tell me what happened?” he asked in a commanding tone. Gary just glared at him for a moment. And Jake sighed. “Okay, here’s the thing Gary. This department can’t be fighting amongst ourselves when we’re supposed to be preventing those things out there. We need to figure out what the issue is so we can handle it. Understood?” 

“Then why don’t you talk to your boyfriend. He’s the one who threw the first punch,” Gary snapped. 

“I plan on it,” Jake told him. “I’m just trying to find out what’s going on first. Then we can figure out what to do about it.”

Gary huffed. “I just made an innocent comment and then the next thing I knew he punched me, so I defended myself.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. He knew it was more than that. Bill may have a temper, but he wouldn’t lose it over an ‘innocent comment’. “And what comment did you make?” He knew he was right when Gary clammed up and wouldn’t say anything else, so Jake got up and started asking other people who witnessed it what they saw while Jimmy finished with Bill who was a lot more talkative than Gary was. He found out what the comment was and personally didn’t blame Bill for decking him. That didn’t mean he could just let it go either. The appearance of propriety was just as important as actual propriety in this case. 

Once he had a good picture of the whole situation, he called Bill into his office. He knew that the others needed to see him being taken to task, but letting them hear what was said was an entirely different story. Once the door was closed and no sound was escaping he sat on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. “What the hell was that?” Jake asked annoyed. 

“You know what he said?” Bill asked with a growl. 

“Yeah. I know. And if we were just two guys out on the street, I would have knocked his lights out, but we’re not. We’re the ones who are supposed to be keeping order in this town, and we can’t do that if we’re brawling amongst ourselves,” Jake snapped and Bill deflated. 

“I know.” 

Jake started to pace as he tried to figure out how to handle this. Firing either of them was not an option. Gary may have been a complete ass, but Bill threw the first punch and Bill was needed too much here for that to even be considered. “I know you know that, but you need to remember it. People are going to be idiots. They’re going to say stupid things. I wish I could say that’s not the case, but it is. That doesn’t mean you can go around hitting them for it.”

“I know,” Bill said again. He knew that Jake was right. He knew he shouldn’t have done it. Usually he was pretty good at keeping his hands to himself when things got tense, but he’d been so on edge over all this and what Gary said had pretty much confirmed his worst fears, at least where that one person was concerned, and he just snapped. “It won’t happen again,” he promised. 

“It better not. I can’t afford to lose anyone here, and I definitely can’t afford to lose you and if we can’t keep the peace here then someone is going to have to go and I won’t have a choice but to let go the one throwing punches,” Jake said bluntly, making it clear that he didn’t want to have to fire Bill or anyone, but he wasn’t going to play favorites either. 

Bill nodded. “I get it. And you know I’d never ask for special treatment, so I’ll consider this my one warning then?” 

Jake nodded and waved him out of the office and called Gary in. The smug look on Gary’s face when he sat down just irked Jake to no end. “And you can wipe that smug look of your face. You’re not off the hook either. I will not have fighting amongst ourselves, with fists /or/ words. If you can’t deal civilly with the people in this station then I’m going to have to move you to a shift where you don’t have these issues. Do I need to do that, Gary?” 

Gary slumped. He’d assumed when he saw Bill getting yelled at that he was off the hook, but apparently that wasn’t the case. “We all know why I’m the one being switched to another shift,” he grumbled bitterly. 

Jake put his hands on the desk and leaned over it, looking Gary in the eye. “You’re the one being moved because in case you missed the memo, I’m gay too, and the sheriff kinda has to work the day shift, Gary, which means if you have an issue, you have to be the one to work nights. Understood?”

Gary winced. He hadn’t even considered that. Insulting Bill was one thing. Insulting Jake Green was a whole different story. “I get it, and I’m good. You don’t need to move me,” he told him. 

“Good. I hope I don’t have to reconsider that,” he said in warning and waved him out before sitting down and pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew that things were going to get worse before they got better.


	17. Chapter 17

What both Jake and Bill missed was Gary being taken to task by the rest of the deputies too, all of whom had nothing but respect for both of them. By the time they left the station that night they could use a drink. Bill wanted to go home and hide, but Jake talked him into heading to Bailey’s instead. Hiding would be the worst thing they could do right now. There were a lot of whispers following them, but nothing else was said outright. Jake could tell that the whispers were mostly surprise and curiosity, and Bill would have been able to tell that too if his paranoia wasn’t working overtime. At one point the whispers got a little louder and Bill started to get up, but Jake quickly wrapped an arm around him and pulled him back down leaning over to whisper, “Relax, Bill. They’re just curious. It’ll blow over when they find something else to gossip about. Until then, we just have to ignore it.”

Bill didn’t move to get up again, but he didn’t relax much either, and they ended up making it an early night. As soon as they were inside, Bill stripped off his overshirt and threw it angrily over the chair. “Now you see why I didn’t want anyone to know?” he snapped. 

Jake sighed. “I always knew that Bill, but I meant what I said earlier too. It’ll blow over and things will go back to normal. And then everything will be out in the open. It’ll take time, but it will get better. I promise.” He reached over and pulled Bill into a hug and kissed him soothingly and Bill finally started to relax. Jake was proven right over the next two weeks as things slowly died down. There were still some isolated whispers here and there, but for the most part people had gotten used to the idea and moved one. Twice people had come into the station and refused to talk to Jake or Bill, but those were isolated incidents and even Bill could see that. Once Jake talked to him anyway. 

It seemed that was the queue for something else to go wrong though. Stanley was on his way home from Bailey’s around two am one night when he heard something at Jake and Bill’s house and stopped to check it out, only to find a kid painting graffiti on the wall. When he saw what it said, he saw red and grabbed the back of the kid’s collar and dragged him down the street so he wouldn’t wake up Jake and Bill. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked as he shoved the kid away from him once they were clear. 

“Just telling the truth, man,” the kid said with a smirk. 

“The truth? The truth is that those two have saved this entire town and the lives of everyone in it, including you, a hundred times over. Those men deserve your respect.” 

“Men,” he said with a sarcastic snort. “Right.”

Stanley grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close to get in his face. If he’d been grown, Stanley would have hit him, but he couldn’t be more than sixteen. “Yes, MEN, you little punk. You think you could stand there with hundreds of people shooting at you without pissing yourself?” 

The kid just kept smirking and shrugged. “Long as I got a gun to shoot back with,” he retorted. 

Stanley shoved him away. “Then I guess you really are as stupid as you look,” he snapped and started dragging the protesting kid towards the station. Once he got there he practically threw him at the nearest deputy and growled, “Lock him up.”

“What did he do?” Gene, the head deputy of the shift, came over and asked while motioning Kevin to get the kid’s statement and do as Stanley said. He knew better than to argue with a Ranger, even a drunk one. If Stanley wanted him locked up there was a good reason. 

“I caught him painting the word ‘fag’ on the side of Jake and Bill’s house. I’m gonna go grab a couple guys from Bailey’s to help me cover it up before they wake up,” Stanley said before turning to go. 

“Stanley, wait,” Gene called after him. When Stanley turned back around, he said, “If you want the kid to go down we need evidence.”

“I’m not gonna let them see that,” Stanley told him. 

“Not asking you to. And I’m not planning to let this case cross Jake’s desk either. I’m just asking you to wait a minute, so I can send someone with you to take pictures first.” Stanley nodded and that started an argument as to who was going to go. The fact that they would be helping to cover it up while they were there was unstated, but obvious. In the end they ended up drawing straws and Kevin was the one to go. He grabbed the polaroid and headed out. 

Stanley detoured to Bailey’s and the first priority was to find Joe. It didn’t take long to find him at the back. “Hey, Joe. I need in your store real quick.” 

“What for?” the inebriated man asked. 

“Someone painted slurs over Jake and Bill’s house and I need to get it covered up before they see it in the morning,” Stanley told him.

Joe jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “Come on. I think I’ve still got a bucket or two of the right color. If not, I should still have what I need to mix one to match.” Paint wasn’t something they had a lot of, it not being much of a priority and all, but then most people didn’t bother too much with painting these days, so it balanced out. 

They got to the house about ten minutes after Kevin did, and the deputy was quick to rope one of them into holding the flashlight so he could get a good picture. He found it more than a little difficult to do both with the huge ancient polaroid camera. While he and Stanley were getting the pictures, Joe was getting the paint can open and ready and the brushes were handed out five minutes after they got there. 

Unfortunately, three people milling around outside their house, two of them drunk and not as quiet as they should have been, was enough to wake Jake and Bill up and no sooner than they had brushes in hand, they were facing flashlights and guns from either side. Jake was the first to lower his gun. “Stanley, Kevin, Joe? What are you guys doing here?” he asked. 

Bill lowered his gun just after Jake did, but he had already seen what they were doing and was standing there staring at the wall, with an unreadable expression on his face. Jake turned to see what he was looking at and set his jaw angrily and Stanley winced. “Sorry, guys. We were trying to get it covered up before you saw it.” Bill turned and stormed into he house, slamming the door loudly behind him and Jake looked after him before looking back at Stanley. “Go after him, Jake. We’ll handle this.”

“Hang on,” Jake stopped them and looked at Kevin. “You got pictures for evidence?” Kevin nodded and flashed the polaroids. 

“I also caught the guy doing it. He’s in the jail until we can haul him before Eric tomorrow,” Stanley told him and Jake nodded. 

“Thanks guys,” Jake said seriously and rushed after Bill. If it was just him, he would have let it go, but he had seen what this was doing to Bill and he wanted that punk nailed to the wall. He rushed into the house just in time to see Bill punch the wall and walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, not trying to stop him, just let him know that he was there. 

Bill spun to face him. “Still think it’s going to blow over, Jake?” He pointed angrily towards the wall on the other side of the graffiti. “THAT is not blowing over!” 

Jake put both of his hands on Bill’s shoulders to try and calm him down. “That…is an isolated incident of a punk kid being a smart-ass. There’s been graffiti all over town Bill. Yes, this one is a targeted attack at us, but it’s just one incident. Think for a minute. It /is/ blowing over. Most of the town accepts this. Accepts /us/. We knew there were always going to be jerks that didn’t, but they have been few and far between. We got the kid that did it and he’ll get his.” 

Bill wrenched himself away from Jake’s grip and started to pace. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jake,” he said anxiously. 

Jake forced himself not to freak out at that statement. He knew that Bill was just worked up and not thinking straight. “You realize that even if we split up, we can’t put the cat in the bag. Everyone will still know that we’re gay,” he pointed out. 

That stopped Bill’s pacing on the spot. “Who said anything about splitting up?” he asked wide-eyed. 

“I thought that was what you meant…”

Bill shook his head. “Oh hell no. I don’t know what I meant, but I sure as hell didn’t mean that.” 

Jake breathed a sigh of relief and couldn’t help but smile at the vehemence with which that was said and he stepped closer to Bill, grabbing his shoulders again and said, “We can handle this, babe. We /will/ handle this. As long as we have each other. Okay?” 

Bill took a deep breath and nodded before pulling Jake into a soft kiss, until they heard a throat clearing. Jake had forgotten that he left the door open and Joe was standing there. “We’re all done. The color isn’t a perfect match, but it should be close enough not to be too obvious.” 

“Thanks, Joe. We appreciate it,” Jake told him, not nearly as embarrassed as Bill was. Given that neither of them were much for public affection, no one else had ever seen them kiss each other before. Joe just nodded and smiled at them as he left, and Jake went to close the door. “Come on. Let’s get back to bed. We still have a couple hours before we need to be up.”


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning, a sleepy Jake and Bill headed to the station, and steadfastly avoided the jail cells. Neither of them trusted themselves not to do something stupid. They knew that Eric wouldn’t hear the case until this afternoon, so they kept themselves busy doing other things. Neither of them were touching the case at all even, just to avoid any accusations of things not being kosher. In fact, the case wasn’t even in the station anymore. Even before they showed up, it was put on Eric’s desk to wait for him to get there. 

Eric walked into the town hall and headed towards his office on the other side of the building from the sheriff’s offices, to check and see if there was anything that needed his attention. He may be the judge but that didn’t mean he worked at it often. He still had to check every day but he generally only handled a few cases a month. Most things were settled outside the court, either by the deputies knocking some heads together and sending people home to sleep it off in the case of fights, or with vandalism, once they caught the person they usually confessed and most people were more than willing to drop charges in return for fixing whatever was broken or cutting a deal to make amends some other way. There was just too much to do most days for everyone involved to want to deal with having to be in court. 

Therefore, he was rather surprised to find a nice blue file on his desk when he got in and he sat down to look it over, thunder forming in his face as he did. He just barely stopped himself from storming down the hall to the sheriff’s office to make sure that Jake and Bill were dealing okay. With his brother involved he had to do this by the book which meant no contact with anyone involved in the case until it was settled. He set it for right after lunch and sent a copy up to Gray’s office, and wrote out summons to the deputy who took the pictures, took the kid’s statement, and processed the evidence. He also summoned Stanley who’d caught him red-handed, and Joe since he’d seen it too. He declined to summon Jake and Bill, but knew that they could be gotten in minutes if they were needed. 

Gray looked over the folder Eric sent him. He was always notified of any trials as the mayor and he usually attended when he wasn’t busy with anything else. This one he would clear his schedule for though. Those involved gathered in the courtroom at one pm, Jake and Bill declining to attend unless they were sent for, and the kid, Will’s, father was there, glaring at his son as he was brought in. There weren’t actually any other lawyers in town, so there wasn’t a lot of representation. Those that were represented it was usually by a fast-talking friend or relative, but Eric was always quick to cut through the BS. There wasn’t a prosecutor either, so at least it was a fair fight either way. 

Will pleaded not guilty at the start, so Eric called Stanley who related everything he’d seen and the conversation they’d had right up until handing him off at the station. He then called the deputy and talked about the statement, the evidence, essentially the paint can that matched the paint on the house that he had on him and the fact that his prints were on the can and the brush in it. Joe was next and he just described what he saw and also managed to add that Will’s father, Mike had just picked up a bucket of that same color paint. At that Mike was called who said that yes he got the paint to do his shutters, and yes, his bucket of paint was missing this morning. That was the nail in his coffin and Will changed his plea to guilty. 

Eric looked seriously at him. “Do you realize that if this were in the old court system, what you did would be classified as a hate crime which would add an automatic ten year prison sentence to any other punishment you received?” Will turned pale at that and turned to look at his father for help, but he got no help there. When he looked back at Eric, he added, “Luckily for you, we don’t have the facilities to hold someone for any length of time, nor do we need any dead weight in this town. Since no one’s life was put in danger, it doesn’t warrant banishment either, which means we’re going to have to do something else with you. We’ll recess for one hour before sentencing.”

Eric just needed some time to get his head straight before he ended up being too harsh with the sentence. Reading it had been one thing, but hearing the stories and the kid’s complete lack of remorse was completely different. By the end of the hour he had decided what he was going to do and went back into the courtroom and laid it out. “You will spend twenty hours a week scrubbing up all the graffiti in this town, starting with town hall, until there is no longer any trace of it.”

“For how long?” Will asked. 

“Until the town is clean. And if more graffiti goes up before you’re finished it will be your job to clean it as well. If it gives you any consolation, the town is running low on paint and it’s not really a priority to get more,” Eric added, resisting the urge to smirk at him. He had to keep this professional, and it would definitely take less than the ten years he would be in prison in the old system anyway, so he felt justified. The usual punishment for graffiti was to clean it up, but there was plenty of it around where they hadn’t caught the perpetrator so now they had someone to clean that up too. 

Once that was taken care of, Eric left the courtroom and headed straight to the sheriff’s office, and when he saw they weren’t too busy he waved Jake and Bill into Jake’s office. “I take it you’re done?” Jake asked, knowing that Eric wouldn’t have come here if he wasn’t. 

“Yeah. Will Hentith will be cleaning up all the graffiti in Jericho for a very long time,” Eric told them. “How are you guys doing?” 

Jake looked at Bill for the answer to that. “We’re okay,” Bill told him. “I still want to strangle the little shit, but I’m dealing.”

Eric nodded. “I know the feeling. It was all I could do not to kick him out of town anyway despite the fact that it wasn’t a violent crime.” 

Jake agreed with him. “Hopefully he’ll learn a little something and at least the town will be cleaned up finally.” 

In the meantime, Will’s father was almost literally dragging him home, loudly lecturing him all the way. He had been one of those who had fought beside Bill and Jake in the New Bern war last year when every person in town was called on to fight if they could. Bill had saved his life twice during that battle and it was clear to everyone who saw them on the way that Will would be having trouble sitting for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, that just made Will even more bitter towards Bill and Jake and he was determined to do something about it. Everyone thought they were such big heroes just because they fought, well he could fight too, and he would prove it the next chance he got. 

The next day, Jake and Bill caught their first sight of the graffiti artist as he was cleaning up town hall when they came into work. They steadfastly ignored him, especially after noticing the way he was glaring at them. They weren’t going to be seen picking on a kid, no matter how much he might deserve it. Jake did give Bill’s shoulder a squeeze to keep him calm as they passed him. Things were thankfully at least settled in the station now. Between the dressing down that Jake had given him and the crap he had gotten from the other deputies, Gary was fully on their side, and there hadn’t been any other incidents. There was still the occasional complainant that wanted nothing to do with the sheriff or his senior deputy, but that was getting easier to deal with. For Bill, that was. Jake had never really cared much what random people thought of him. As long as his family and friends were good, everyone else could go hang.


	19. Chapter 19

Will got his chance a few days later. He was cleaning up outside the doors at town hall when the sheriff and all the deputies came running out and called to the deputy that was watching him, “Murphy farm!” and tossed him a rifle. Four of them piled into the patrol car and the rest jumped on horses and took off. Will waited a few minutes before he grabbed his own horse and headed towards the Murphy farm, stopping by to grab his father’s rifle on the way. 

Jake, Bill and the other two deputies that rode in the car quickly started helping the Rangers that were already there set up the barricades and they were joined by the rest on horseback about ten minutes later. It was about ten minutes after that when someone else rode up and when Jake saw who it was he went over. “Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?” 

“Proving that I’m just as good as a couple of fags,” Will said angrily. 

“Go home kid, before you get yourself killed,” Jake said dismissively and turned back towards the barricades. 

Will just got off his horse and said, “No.”

“Damnit kid…” Jake started only to be cut off by the sound of trucks and he cursed. “Get down behind here and stay out of the way.” He pulled Will down behind the barricade with himself, Bill and two others. 

Will got his weapon up with everyone else and Jake rolled his eyes. “You don’t shoot until I say. Got it?” Will nodded, not liking taking orders, but not wanting to kick it off himself either. When the guys from New Bern got out of the trucks, Jake called out, “Turn around and leave and we can all walk away from here.” He was answered by a hail of gunfire and said, “Now,” but Will was already curled up behind the barricade covering his ears. 

Will was suddenly doubting his wisdom in coming here. The guns were so loud and they wouldn’t stop shooting. The dust was flying everywhere and when the guns started sounding right next to him he was near panic. He didn’t think it would be so much different from hunting but he was very wrong. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air. 

When their barricade blew up and blasted them away, Jake and Bill both scrambled over to Stanley’s position while the other two men went the other way. No sooner than Jake got to cover he realized that Will wasn’t with them. In fact, the little idiot was trying to run away. Jake cursed and got up to rush after him, tackling him to the ground just as a bullet ripped through his shoulder. He started to drag the kid back over but couldn’t get a grip with his good arm. 

Bill called out, “Cover fire!” as he and Stanley rushed out after them and the rest of the men threw everything they had at New Bern, sending most of them behind their trucks to avoid the hail. 

“I got Jake, you get the kid,” Stanley told him and as much as Bill would have preferred the other way around, he nodded. It was the best way, after all. Jake was bigger than the kid and Stanley would have an easier time helping him. 

Bill grabbed Will and was taking him back when the kid started yelling about being shot. Bill looked down at him before saying. “It’s just a graze. You’re fine.” Once they were all back in place, they stopped wasting their ammo and Bill asked Jake, “You good?” 

Jake nodded. “I’ll be fine. I need to get up that hill to get an angle on that grenade launcher.” 

Bill shook his head. “I got it. That shoulder will slow you down too much,” he told Jake before yelling again, “Cover me!” He spun around Jake and started scrambling up the hill, darting behind any rock and tree he could on the way. 

Jake lifted his rifle back up only to curse again and drop it before pulling out his sidearm and started taking shots at the closer ones. His left arm was completely useless. He kept as much of an eye on Bill as he could without taking his attention off the fight and glanced down at the kid a few times to make sure he was out of the way and sure enough, he was curled up in a ball again. 

Jake noticed the grenade launcher getting ready to fire again but before it could Bill took out the guy manning it. Before the next guy could get in place, he was down too, and from there it was a relatively easy fight. With Bill on top of the hill keeping them scattered, they were able to pick them off cleanly until the last few men jumped in the trucks and took off. Once it was over, Jake sighed in relief before promptly passing out. 

Bill was rushing back down the hill, holding his shirt to his arm. Jimmy was hit too, but not too badly. They got Jake in the backseat of the patrol car, and Jimmy was putting pressure on his leg wound and Jake’s shoulder as he got in back with him. Bill told the kid to get in the passenger seat, knowing that he was in no state to ride back, despite not being hurt, but he didn’t respond. In the end Stanley just picked him up and tossed him in the car. “You got cleanup?” Bill asked Stanley as he got in. 

“Yeah. Go,” Stanley told him and Bill was barrelling towards the med center a few seconds later. 

Kenchi took Jake back for surgery right away, and Bill rounded on the kid. “What the hell did you think you were doing?!” 

Jessica was working on Jimmy’s leg wound and called over, “Bill!” as one of the nurses came over to them. 

About that time Will’s father, Mike, rushed in the door. “What happened?” 

Bill snapped. “He decided that he would prove that he could do as good as us, and showed up at the skirmish with New Bern. Then he got the bright idea to try to run away in the middle of a firefight and Jake went after him,” Bill told him. 

Mike’s eyes widened. “Jake…”

“In surgery. He took a hit as he tackled him,” Bill told him.

Will apparently snapped out of his shock at his father’s voice. “Dad! I got shot!” Mike looked to the nurse that was checking him out after Bill waved her over to him instead. 

She looked up at him. “It’s just a slight graze. He’ll be fine.” She turned to Bill and said, “Your turn.”

Bill removed his shirt from his arm to reveal a deep gash across his bicep. “I got winged pretty good, but it’s not bad.” 

Gail had gone back with Jake to assist in his surgery and she came out looking for blood donors. “I’m O-negative,” Bill said, quickly volunteering. 

“So am I. And him,” Mike added motioning to Will as well. Gail nodded and motioned the nurses to start drawing blood from them. 

“First, you’re going to let me stitch up that arm before you go giving any more blood,” Jessica said as she came over to work on him, having finished up with Jimmy for the moment. Bill nodded curtly and followed her into he triage room, knowing better than to argue. Thankfully, he missed the argument outside. 

“I don’t want to give blood,” Will told his father. “I’m already hurt.”

Mike looked angrily down at his son. “Jake Green is in there because he took a bullet for you, because of your own stupidity, after everything you did to him, and you just have a little scratch. Did you see Bill’s arm? And he’s giving blood.” Will deflated at that and nodded, letting the nurse draw blood from him once she was done with his father. 

By the time Bill was finished getting stitched up and came out, he still had a few minutes to wait for his turn. It was only another hour before Kenchi came back out and Bill jumped up. “How’s Jake?” 

Kenchi smiled at him. “He’s fine. The bullet missed anything major, but he’s lost a lot of blood. I want to keep him for at least a day to be sure, but he should make a full recovery.” 

Bill sagged with relief. He had a new appreciation for what Jake had gone through when he was hurt a few months ago. “Can I see him?” Kenchi nodded and Gail wrapped an arm around Bill and led him back to Jake’s room. 

“He should be awake in an hour or so,” Gail told him as she left them alone. Bill went over to Jake’s bed and plopped down in the chair, taking his hand and lifting it to his lips as he tried to remind himself that Jake would be fine because he sure didn’t look it right now. He didn’t know what it was about hospital beds that made everyone look like they were on death’s door, but he didn’t like it. 

It was only a few minutes before Bill’s radio went off. “Hey Bill?” 

He unclipped it from his belt. “Yeah, Stanley?” 

“How’s Jake?” 

“He’s okay. Kenchi said the bullet missed anything big, but he lost a lot of blood. They had to give him some and he’s gonna be here for at least a day, but he’ll be fine.”

“Good. That’s good. How’s Jimmy? And you?” Stanley asked. 

“I’m fine. Just a few stitches, Jimmy’s gonna have a limp for a while, but his went right through,” Bill told him. 

“We got lucky,” Stanley said relieved that they hadn’t lost anyone and the injuries were mostly minor.

“Yeah. We did,” Bill said relieved. “How’s the cleanup going?” 

“Got someone trucking the New Bern bodies out to the border. A couple more minor injuries here, but nothing a little first aid can’t fix. Barricades are down and we’re almost done,” Stanley told him. 

“Good. Thanks, Stanley,” Bill said. 

“Keep me updated on Jake?” 

“I will.”


	20. Chapter 20

Jake woke up a little after the predicted hour was up, and Bill breathed a sigh of relief as Jake opened his eyes and grinned. “We need to stop meeting like this,” he joked and Bill let out a breathy laugh. 

“You’re telling me,” he replied with an answering grin. 

“So what’s the damage?” Jake asked. 

“Just some blood loss. Kenchi wants you to stick around for a day to make sure, but you’re fine,” Bill told him. 

Jake gave a sigh of relief. “And you?” he gestured to the bandage around Bill’s arm. 

“I’m fine. Just some stitches. I got winged pretty good on my run up the hill,” he told him. 

“Everyone else?” 

“Jimmy got caught by a through and through, but he’ll be up and around before long, just with a bit of a limp, but that’s it other than scratches and bruises,” Bill told him. 

Jake nodded. “So the kid’s okay?” 

Bill’s lip curled at the mention, but he quickly wiped it away. “He’s fine. Got grazed a bit, but it’s just a scratch.”

About that time Gail came in to check on him and gave him a thorough looking over before leaning down to kiss his forehead. “You up for a bit of company, honey?” she asked him and he nodded. 

A minute later, Will and Mike came in. Bill opened his mouth to say something, but Jake squeezed his hand to shut him up. “I’m sorry,” Will said quickly, looking at the floor. 

“As long as you learned something from it,” Jake said, not willing to offer forgiveness, but not wanting to tell him off either. He still looked pretty pale and in shock, and he was just a stupid kid. Bill clearly wasn’t happy, but nodded his agreement with Jake anyway. 

“I did,” Will said quietly. 

“Go wait in the hall for me,” Mike told him, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze first. Once he was gone, Mike looked at Bill and Jake. “I want to apologize, too.”

Bill shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Mike.”

“Yeah. I do. See, my wife died in the first mortar hit last year, and Will somehow got it into his head that you were to blame for it. I could have tried harder to convince him otherwise…”

“You had just lost your wife. You had more important things on your mind. We understand,” Jake told him. 

Mike nodded at that and then said, “I want to thank you both for saving my son. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost him too.”

Bill was the one to answer that. “No matter our differences, we never would have let him be hurt if we could help it.” 

Mike smiled. “And that’s why you’re a good man. Both of you. I’ll let you get your rest now.”

They both nodded at him as he left. Once he was gone, Jake told Bill, “Go easy on the kid?” 

“Why should I?” Bill asked incredulously. 

“Because he may be an idiot, but he’s still just a kid. I was a lot more stupid than he is when I was his age. He’s starting to realize that he screwed up so give him a break.” 

Bill sighed and nodded. “Yeah, okay. But I still don’t like him.”

Jake chuckled. “Not asking you to.” 

Jake ended up being released from the hospital the next day, but was in a sling and on light duty for two weeks while his shoulder healed. On the way home from the hospital, Jake and Bill stopped by Bailey’s to meet up with everyone. It turned out to be one of the night’s that Mimi had kicked Stanley out for being annoying. It tended to happen at least twice a week, if not more. He was understandably nervous about her being all the way out at the farm by herself if something happened, so Jake had given him an extra radio to give her so she could call for help if she needed to. So far, she hadn’t needed to use it, but it gave Stanley peace of mind. 

Jimmy was there too with his still pronounced limp, as well as a few more border patrol guys and some of the off-duty deputies. With all of them and Eric and Mary, they had a pretty good party going and given their tendency to substitute alcohol for pain meds given the scarcity of the latter, Jake was pretty soused before long. Jake even kissed Bill in the middle of the bar. And Bill let him, which said a lot for his inebriation level as well. There were a few catcalls, but no one was bothered by it. Not that they would have noticed if anyone was. It was around three am by the time they got home and collapsed into bed. Jake was out of work for a couple more days, but Bill would end up having to go into the station in a few hours with a massive hangover. 

By the time Bill got home that night, he was more than a little cranky, but his mood lifted when he got home to see that Jake had dinner ready and he managed a bit of cuddle time before he went to crash. When Jake got back to work, things quickly went back to normal, though there was some light teasing about the bar kiss, that made Jake laugh and Bill blush. 

Will was right back to work on the graffiti the day after the incident with a lot less hostility and whole new respect for Jake and Bill. There were no more glares or comments. He even shared a respectful nod with Jake when they passed. Bill still ignored him for the most part, but at least he wasn’t hostile about it anymore. He was learning what it took to make a ‘man’ and that they had it in spades, despite their preferences. What was more difficult for him to deal with was that he didn’t, but he was determined to fix that, and was finally on the right track towards doing so. 

Jake and Bill were headed home that evening when their attention was drawn to the sound of a truck. They figured it was just Dale coming home, otherwise they would have heard something from the border patrols, but turned to look anyway before rushing over. “Dale! What happened!?” Jake asked worriedly. 

Dale came out of the truck bleeding and dirty. “I’m okay, but the trading post is overrun. The military came in and started shooting people and shut it down,” Dale told him. “I lost two of my guys.”

Jake closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was just what they needed. “You got any other contacts or places to go?” Jake asked hopefully. 

Dale shook his head. “No. If they got there, then I’m sure they’ll wrap up the whole network.” 

“Damnit,” Bill snapped as he started pacing. 

Jake reached out and put a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “You wanna get Dale to the med center?” Jake held up a hand to stop Dale from protesting. “I know you said you’re fine, and I’m sure you will be, but I can see that you could use some patching up anyway. You got anything in here that needs to be handled immediately?” 

Dale shook his head so Bill wrapped Dale’s arm over his shoulder when he noticed him limping and they made their way over to the car and Bill drove him to the hospital. Jake drove the truck around and parked it behind the store and went inside to tell Skylar what happened. They would get the full story later, but they knew the important parts. Skylar, like Jake suspected, immediately closed the store and rushed off to the med center to check on Dale. 

Jake went back to the station and started making a game plan. “We’re gonna need more security for a while. Once word gets around that trade has had such a major setback, the people are gonna panic. I’ll swing by the med center tomorrow and get word that they need to start rationing meds and supplies as much as they can until Dale manages to find a new option for trading. I’m gonna need everyone to be more visible around town for a while. I don’t want more than two people in this office at any given moment until things have settled,” he told them. 

Everyone nodded. They knew the drill. Things were going to get tough for a while, but they’d had these sorts of setbacks before and they managed. They would do it again. The hard part would be getting the rest of the people to see that when they were in the midst of a panic. Just once Jake wished that when something like this happened more people would come in with a ‘what do you need me to do?’ attitude rather than causing trouble, but that wasn’t really human nature.


	21. Chapter 21

Dale needed a few stitches and declined pain meds like most of the hardier people in town always did, especially since he knew that there weren’t going to be more coming for a while. It took about a week for the people to settle down and a little more than a month for Dale to find new connections. They still weren’t as good as the old ones, but where there was a void people were stepping up to fill it out there and they were still getting started. They had an influx again, even if meds and medical supplies were scarce. They hadn’t been the only town hit hard by the shutdown of the major trading post, but Jake suspected that they came through it better than most. 

Thankfully winter was ending, which meant a few things. People were easier to get along with as the weather warmed up. They were busier than usual trying to get things ready for planting. Too busy to cause too much trouble. Also the fact that they made it through another winter lifted people’s spirits, along with the fact that they had lost far fewer people this winter than they had last year. There had been a few isolated accidents, but for the most part they came through unscathed and even still had enough food to get them through until the first crops were ready. 

With Bonnie gone and Mimi nine months pregnant, Stanley was rushing to try and get his fields ready for planting when he got the call on the radio. “Stanley?” he heard Mimi’s voice. 

He snatched the radio off his belt, already running for the house. “What is it?” 

“It’s time,” she told him. 

“I’m on my way,” he told her, picking up the pace. 

Jake was on the radio next. “Hey Jimmy?” 

“I heard Jake. I’m not far. Stanley, you guys want to hitch a ride to the med center?” Jimmy asked. 

“That would be great, Jimmy. Thanks,” Stanley said relieved. It would get them there much more quickly and smoothly than the horse drawn cart that he had ready. 

By the time he got to the house and got Mimi outside, the patrol car was pulling up and they slid in. “Just please, do me a favor and don’t pop the kid out until we get there. It would be immensely helpful,” Jimmy partially joked and it got them both to laugh. 

“I’ll do…my best,” Mimi replied panting through another contraction as Jimmy drove like a bat out of hell for the med center. 

Jake and Bill were on edge waiting for news. Stanley was their best friend, and they were worried. Especially with the med center running low on pretty much everything. Still, they knew that the birth would take a while, so they stuck out their shifts before rushing to the med center themselves to sit with Stanley. It was a little after three am when Stanley came out carrying a little bundle. They had been joined by Eric and Mary and Gail was in there assisting. “Hey guys. I want you to meet Joy Coleen Richmond,” Stanley said with a wide grin and was met with a round of congratulations. 

Jake grinned down at the baby as he clapped Stanley on the back. “She’s perfect man. Congrats. How’s Mimi?” 

“She’s resting, but she’ll be fine. No complications or anything thankfully.”

Eric was happy for him, but couldn’t help the undercurrent of pain as he thought about what might have been if April hadn’t lost their child and her own life last year. “That’s great Stanley. I’m glad,” Eric said and Stanley realized what must be going through his head and gave him a sympathetic look. 

Stanley looked at the time, “Crap. I gotta get back to work in a few hours.” 

Bill shook his head. “No, you don’t. You’re exactly where you need to be.”

“But the fields…I have to be ready…”

“We’ve got some guys working on that for you. By the time you go home in a couple days you’ll be all ready for planting,” Jake promised and Stanley breathed a sigh of relief. He definitely didn’t want to leave his wife and new daughter right now, but he knew that without his farm the whole town might starve so he was glad to have been given another option. 

“Thank you…just…thank you,” he said, visibly moved. 

True to Jake’s word, Stanley was planting less than a week later along with most of the rest of town. Bill and Jake got their garden planted before heading out to help Gail with the ranch along with Eric and Mary who had been there since they started. Bailey’s didn’t have a garden or any room for one and since they lived above the bar, they just helped where they were needed, and given the amount of land available to Gail, that was where the most help was needed. 

Not long after the planting was done, they were called to another family dinner at the Green house where Eric and Mary announced their engagement to a happy Gail. She and Mary had long put aside their differences, and though Gail would always love and miss April, Mary was just as much family now too. Jake and Bill congratulated them warmly, and it was a night of celebration. They had decided to wait until winter started to do the wedding though. There was just too much to be done the rest of the year to worry about planning and pulling off a nice wedding. Between everyone’s day jobs, plus their gardens, plus the Rangers for most of them, no one had time to breath between spring and fall. 

The trade picked back up slowly and by the end of summer, the med center was fully stocked. Or at least as close to fully stocked as it could be in this climate. There were still big holes in what they had available, but they had all they needed of the necessities. There had been a few more skirmishes with New Bern and a few more injuries, but no one else had needed serious hospitalization in a while. 

Jake and Bill celebrated their one year anniversary just a few weeks before the fall harvest was set to start. They had just spent the evening at Bailey’s with a big group of friends before going home and spending the rest of the night wrapped up in each other. As they were cuddled together starting to drift off, Bill asked, “Jake?” 

“Hmm?” Jake replied sleepily. 

“Are you happy?” he asked. 

Jake smiled and pulled Bill closer, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Yeah, Bill. I am. You?” 

“Mhmm,” Bill hummed as he turned his face to Jake’s chest and pressed a kiss there. “Never been happier.”

“Good,” Jake replied. “I love you, Bill. Always.” 

“I love you too, Jake. Forever,” Bill replied before they drifted off to sleep. 

A few weeks after the harvest was Eric and Mary’s wedding. They had a nice ceremony in the church with most of the town present before going to Bailey’s for the reception and to party the night away and other than those on duty, both the Rangers and the deputies, everyone was getting pretty drunk. Including Jake and Bill. When the song I’ll Stand By You came on Jake grinned and grabbed Bill’s hand. “Dance with me?” 

Bill’s eyes widened. “You want to dance? With me? Here?” 

Jake chuckled. “Yep. Come on,” he gave a little pull to Bill’s arm and only the fact that Bill was pretty close to completely smashed had him going along with it as Jake pulled him into his arms and they started to dance. They were too drunk to notice the stares they were getting, even from the other people dancing. Everyone had gotten used to the fact that they were together a long time ago, but they weren’t used to them showing it so openly. They even shared more than one kiss during the song as they got lost in each other. 

By the time the party broke up, Jake and Bill, along with half the other people from the party were staggering home. In fact, some of them wouldn’t have made it home at all if their horses hadn’t known where to go. When they got home, Jake and Bill collapsed into bed and it was only the alcohol that made Bill admit what came out of his mouth. “You know, I always knew that I would never be able to get married, and I never thought it would bother me, but now it kinda does,” he slurred. 

Jake’s breath caught. “Huh?” He didn’t get a response. “Bill?” Jake asked, voice an octave higher than usual. He was only answered with a snore as Bill passed out and Jake’s mind started whirling. Married. Him and Bill. I mean, it wasn’t like it was going to happen, but the idea…Jake stopped himself. Why was he freaking out over this? Didn’t he wish they could have that too? He passed out himself before he could consider it any further, but the next day, once he got rid of his hangover, it came back to his mind.


	22. Chapter 22

Jake spent most of the rest of the next day lost in thought, ‘working’ in his office. He realized that the main reason he had been freaking out was /because/ he wanted it so much. The fact that Bill wanted it too, made him determined to find a way to make it happen. He knew that it wasn’t legal here in Kansas before the bombs, though it had been in California, but they made the laws now. He knew that once everything was settled, it might not hold out there, but it was worth a try. 

After they got home from the station, Jake asked Bill, “How much do you remember from last night?” 

Bill thought for a second. “Not a lot really. Why? I didn’t do anything stupid did I?” he asked worriedly. 

Jake quickly shook his head. If Bill didn’t remember he wasn’t going to bring it up now. He knew that Bill was still rather sensitive about the prejudice against them. He would see what he could manage to work out before bringing it up with Bill. Still. There were some things that Bill deserved to know about him before even considering marriage. It took him a few days to work up the nerve to have that talk and he sat Bill down after dinner. “Jake? What’s wrong?” Bill asked worriedly. 

“I need to tell you something. Something important. About while I was away before the bombs happened,” Jake said nervously, unable to look at him. 

Bill furrowed his brow. “What is it?” 

“While I was gone, I did some work overseas. Hauling supplies. Mostly through combat zones. I was working for Jennings and Rall…”

“What?” Bill exclaimed in shock. 

Jake ignored him and kept going or he wouldn’t be able to get it out. “One day…our convoy was ambushed. Some of our guys got killed. We had no training, no procedures, nothing to help us cope with something like that. We saw the village they fall back to, so we just acted. We followed them. We went in and we just…just started shooting.” Bill sucked in a sharp breath, mind immediately going to the Ravenwood massacre in Rogue River. “We…we killed six gunmen and…and four bystanders. One of them…she was just a kid. I…I don’t know who fired the shot that killed her. I doubt I’ll ever know, but…but I was a part of that. I followed along with everyone else and…”

Bill knew exactly what Jake needed here and by the time he got to that point he had wrapped his head around things enough to say it. “And it doesn’t matter,” he told him. Jake stopped and blinked at him in surprise. “It doesn’t matter, Jake. Not to me. Yeah, it was a crappy situation. Yeah, it should never have happened. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel guilty over it, but it doesn’t erase everything you’ve done since then.”

Jake shook his head. “She’s dead and I can’t take that back.”

Bill took his hands. “I know. But just like you can’t erase the past, the past can’t erase the present either. All the lives you’ve saved, all the people you’ve helped. I’ve seen what people can do when they get backed into a corner, Jake. We all have. We’ve seen what people can do when they get caught up in a crowd. We fight it out there every day. You screwed up, yes, but it doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Jake finally said what had been on his mind since Goetz had mentioned it. “How is that any different than Goetz and…”

“Now you stop that right there,” Bill snapped. “You are /nothing/ like him. Do you think he would be sitting here feeling bad about some bystander that got in the way while he was chasing bad guys? Hell, no. He killed Bonnie in cold blood, came after Mimi too, and why? To cover his own ass. You were protecting the supplies that were already yours. He slaughtered entire towns so that he could steal everything they had. You are /nothing/ like him, Jake and don’t ever think for a second you are.” 

Jake let out a sigh of relief and leaned against Bill as Bill wrapped his arms around him. That was exactly what Jake had needed to hear. That had haunted him for so long. It probably always would to some degree, but Bill had helped more than he would probably ever know. Just to know that he wasn’t like Goetz was a huge help, and he was more determined than ever to find a way to marry Bill. 

It was a few days before he was able to think up a good excuse to go talk to Gray alone. “What’s up, Jake?” Gray asked when the sheriff stepped into his office. 

“I wanted to talk to you about something rather…delicate,” Jake told him. 

“What’s that?” Gray asked curiously. 

“We make the laws here now, right?” Jake asked, just to be clear. 

Gray looked confused at him. “Well as far as I’m concerned we’re still following the laws that were in place before all this happened. It’s not like we’re going and writing up new laws as we see fit. Why are you asking?” 

“Okay, but does it have to be the laws here? Could we maybe adopt some other laws from other states?” he asked. 

Gray sighed. “You know, this would go much easier if you would just tell me what it is you want.”

“I want to marry Bill,” Jake blurted out. “I know it was never legal in Kansas, but it was in California and I was hoping…” he trailed off with a shrug. 

Gray shook his head amusedly. “I meant what I said last year. We have bigger fish to fry than worrying about people’s personal relationships. I don’t care who marries who. Well, as long as they’re of age of course, so yeah. If you want to marry him, go ahead. Just keep in mind that I can’t promise it will still be legal once this country is put back together.”

Jake nodded. “Good enough. Thanks Gray.” He started to go to leave before he stopped and looked back, “And if you could keep this to yourself for now? I haven’t talked to him about it yet.” Gray nodded and Jake headed back to the sheriff’s office with a new spring in his step. 

“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Bill asked amusedly when he saw Jake come back. 

Jake shook his head. “Nothing really. Just some good news.”

“Anything you want to share?” Bill asked. 

“Not yet. Soon,” Jake promised and Bill nodded. He was curious, but he wasn’t going to pry. He knew that Jake would never keep anything important from him. Jake turned his mind towards how to do it. Neither of them were exactly the candle-lit dinner, flowers, and romance types, but he didn’t like the idea of just blurting it out either. His one and only proposal thus far had been on the spur of the moment in a liquor store parking lot. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and this one he actually planned on going through with. Assuming Bill said yes of course. 

Jake was still trying to think of something a few days later. He immediately threw out any thoughts of doing it publicly. Bill would completely freak out, and he wouldn’t be in much better shape, but he didn’t want to just do it at home either. It needed to be someplace that had meaning to them and he could only think of one place that would fit. But Bill hated the memory they shared there. He would just have to take him there and see if they could turn that bad memory into a good one and if not he wouldn’t pop the question and he’d come up with something else.


	23. Chapter 23

After they left the station, instead of heading towards home, Jake pulled Bill towards the high school. “Where are we going?” Bill asked curiously. 

“You’ll see,” Jake said with a grin, hoping this went off well. 

Bill’s eyes widened when he saw the high school and he started to get more nervous the closer they got to what he suspected their destination was. “Jake…”

Jake turned to Bill, under the bleachers now in the same spot they had been all those years ago. “Just listen for a sec, Bill?” Bill nodded, glancing around. “I know you think of that day as one of your worst memories, but see, for me…it’s one of my best.” 

Bill’s eyes snapped to Jake. “What? But…”   
Jake reached out to brush a hand over Bill’s cheek. “At the time, I didn’t think so, but in hindsight…that was the start of all this. If not for that day, I may never have realized the truth about myself. I may never have seen how I felt for you. We might not be here now. Together and happy.”

Bill sighed and leaned into Jake’s touch. He hadn’t considered it that way. “Yeah. Okay. But it was still humiliating,” he pointed out. 

Jake chuckled a bit. “Half of our adolescence was humiliating, Bill. Why does this one thing bother you so much after all this time?” 

“Be-because it was you,” Bill admitted. When Jake looked at him curiously he explained. “I had loved you for so long, but I new I could never have you and then I did. For a minute. Until you walked away. It was everything I’d ever dreamed of, and then it was snatched away…”

Jake pulled Bill in for a soft slow kiss, pressing him against the same pole that he had been pressed against back then. When they broke for air, Jake rested his forehead against Bill’s and whispered, “I’m not walking away anymore. Ever.” Bill’s hands gripped Jake’s hips as he nodded slightly without breaking the contact between them. Jake kissed him again, pouring as much feeling as he could into it before whispering again. “I love you, Bill.” 

Bill closed his eyes, caught between the flashback and the present as he ran a hand through Jake’s hair. “I love you, Jake. I’ve always loved you.”

Jake smiled. “I think I have too. It just took me a while to realize it.” 

Bill chuckled. “Always knew you were an idiot,” he teased and Jake laughed before capturing his lips again and kissing him passionately, pulling him tightly against him. When they broke for air, Bill said, “Just please don’t make me cum my pants again. Walking home like that once is more than enough for one lifetime,” he joked. 

Jake chuckled, realizing that he had managed to turn this memory around and get Bill to see this place the same way he did. As their start. “I won’t. Promise.”

“So, why are we here, Jake. Just to stroll down memory lane?” Bill asked curiously. 

Jake shook his head. “No. Not just because of that. There’s something I wanted to tell you. And…and ask you,” he said nervously. 

His nerves were making Bill a little more nervous. His mind was running away with him and grabbing onto possibilities that were ridiculous. Sure Jake had something on his mind since Eric’s wedding. Sure this was about as close as they came to romantic, but the idea that Jake could be trying to propose to him…no. It was stupid. “What is it?” he asked when Jake seemed to be hesitating. 

Jake’s carefully planned explanations and speech flew out of his head in the moment and he just blurted out, “Marry me?” 

Bill’s jaw dropped. “What…but…we…it’s not…we can’t…”

Jake took a deep breath for courage as he managed to explain. “I talked to Gray. We make the laws here now, after all, and it was legal in California, so why couldn’t we adopt some of their laws. He agreed. Said it didn’t matter to him. I mean…no promises that it would be legally recognized in the rest of the world if it ever comes back, but here…”

“Yes,” Bill cut off his rambling.

Jake blinked at him for a second before grinning. “Yes?” he asked to confirm. 

Bill grinned back and nodded. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” 

Jake swept him up into a heated kiss and spun him around happily. By the time the broke apart, Jake whispered, “We better get home before I end up breaking my promise.” Bill chuckled and grabbed his hand, leading him back towards their house where he wasted no time stripping them and making love to Jake long into the night before they fell asleep happy and sated. 

They told the family the next night and they were all overjoyed. Especially Gail. Well, once they explained that they actually /could/ get married, that was. It was a few more days before they managed to track down the reverend. “Hey, Reverend. You got a minute?” Jake called as they walked up. 

“What can I do for you boys?” he asked curiously. 

“Well, Bill and I are getting married and we were wondering…” 

The reverend shook his head sadly and cut him off. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“What? Why?” Jake asked, squeezing Bill’s hand when he noticed the hurt in his fiancee’s eyes. The reverend had never shown them anything but acceptance so he didn’t get it. 

“I would never attempt to judge how you live your lives. It’s not my place to do so. I like you both and I truly wish you all the happiness, but I can’t bless a marriage that I believe to be wrong. I can’t ask God to bless a marriage that I believe to be wrong. I’m sorry,” he told them. 

Bill nodded curtly and turned to walk away, pulling his hand from Jake’s and Jake looked back and forth between his retreating fiancée and the reverend for a moment before turning to rush after Bill. “Hey. Bill. I’m sorry.”

Bill shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m the one who should be sorry. I let myself get caught up in the moment and forget for a minute that people like us will never really be accepted.”

“Bill…” Jake reached for his hand, but Bill pulled it away. 

“It’s fine. It was a nice thought but…” 

“No,” Jake said firmly. 

“What?” Bill finally looked at him confused. 

“No. We’re not doing this. We’re not giving up so easily,” Jake told him. 

Bill shook his head. “I’m not going to sit there and try to convince him, Jake.”

“I know. That wouldn’t be right, and it probably wouldn’t work anyway. I just mean that he’s not the only person in this town capable of performing a wedding. Gray could do it as the mayor. Hell, even Eric could do it. We can still get married, Bill. We don’t have to let this stop us. Please.”

Bill sighed and deflated a bit. “Okay. I’ll think about it. Let’s just…go home for now?” Jake nodded and they started walking towards home, both a little more down-hearted than they had been before. Bill from the reminder that he was a freak and Jake from his worry that Bill would call the whole thing off. 

They walked all the way home in silence, ate dinner in silence and then Bill got up and went to bed without a word. They were both too afraid to say something that would bring the whole house of cards tumbling down. Jake sighed and plopped down on the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to bring his emotions under control. After a minute he had to get up and do something so he left and took a walk around town. He didn’t talk to anyone or go anywhere in particular. He just walked. 

Bill heard Jake leave and rolled to his side away from the door, fighting the tears that were stinging his eyes. He had let himself believe for a little while. Believe that he could be normal. Accepted. Believe that he could have the same things as everyone else. He should have known better. He had known better. He had just let Jake convince him he could have it all. Jake’s idealism was one of the things he loved the most about him, but sometimes it came back to bite them in the ass. The question was what to do about it now. 

It was a couple hours before Jake got home and slid into bed next to Bill and Bill rolled over and cuddled up to Jake’s side and whispered, “Talk to Eric or Gray. Whichever you prefer.”

Jake closed his eyes and let the relief wash over him as his arms wrapped around his fiancée. “You sure?” 

Bill nodded against Jake’s chest. “I want to marry you, Jake. Even if it can’t be in a church.” 

Jake pulled Bill tightly against him and tilted his head up to kiss him softly. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”


	24. Chapter 24

The next morning, Jake and Bill rode to the station together, but after checking in, Jake went to camp out in front of Eric’s office to wait for him. He could catch Gray in his office anytime if he needed to, but Eric was never there for long unless there was a case which Jake knew there wasn’t. He was only waiting about fifteen minutes before Eric came in. “Jake? Something wrong?” he asked worriedly. 

Jake didn’t know how to answer that so he didn’t. “Would you marry Bill and I?” he asked in response. 

Eric furrowed his brow in confusion and waved Jake into his office and they both sat. “I thought you were getting married at the church.” When a grimace crossed Jake’s face Eric said, “Uh-oh. What happened?” 

Jake huffed. “Reverend Jameson said that Bill and I getting married was ‘wrong’ and that he couldn’t have any part in it.”

“But that’s…he can’t…I’ll talk to him,” Eric promised. 

Jake shook his head. “I have no intention of trying to force a man of god to go against his morals, no matter how much I may hate them, but I’m not letting this go either. I am going to marry him one way or the other. If you would rather be best man, then that’s okay. I can ask Gray.”

“You would want me as your best man?” Eric asked in surprise. He would have figured on Stanley. 

Jake rolled his eyes and chuckled. “I’ve been best man for you twice. Of course you’d be mine. As long as you’re free for it anyway by not performing the ceremony.”

“Which would you rather I do?” Eric asked. 

“I don’t know. I like the idea of you being my best man, but I also think if I can’t get married in a church, then I would rather have family perform the ceremony and you’re the only family that can, so it’s up to you,” Jake told him. 

“Why don’t you let me think about it for a couple days. I will say that no matter which I decide, if Gray won’t do it then I will, but I might give him first option,” Eric promised. 

Jake grinned. “Thanks Eric. Really. Thank you.” 

Eric pulled Jake into a hug as they got up. “Anything you need, brother. Always,” he said. He knew how happy Jake and Bill were, and he still intended on having a conversation with the good reverend too, but he wouldn’t tell Jake that. 

Jake walked back to the station and Bill looked at him searchingly. Jake just smiled and nodded. They would be getting married. All that remained was who was going to do it. He got an answering grin from Bill. 

Eric left town hall, seeing that there was nothing for him to do there and his first stop was the church. After a long conversation, he still got a solid no, but did get some instructions on how to perform the ceremony. 

Eric turned and went back to town hall and made his way to Gray’s office. After explaining the situation, he said, “So, basically I want to know if you would be willing to. If not, then there’s no question that I’ll do it.”

“Of course, I’d be willing to. After everything those two have done for this town, I owe them more than I could ever hope to repay,” Gray replied. Eric nodded gratefully at Gray. That meant he just had to decide what he wanted. 

Jake managed to get a moment to talk to Bill alone a couple hours later and let him what was decided, or rather, partially decided. Bill gave him a relieved smile. “I’m sorry about last night…”

Jake shook his head. “Don’t be. I get it.” Bill nodded and let it drop, going to file the papers he was working on. 

It took a few days before Eric agreed to perform the ceremony so Jake asked Stanley to stand with him and Bill asked Jimmy. From there planning the wedding was very simple. Jake grabbed a pair of gold cufflinks he had stashed away and took them to the jeweler, who was now a farmer and Ranger, but still had his equipment and the man easily agreed to make wedding rings from them. They wouldn’t be super fancy, of course, but they would be something. From there it was a waiting game. Waiting for the rings to be ready and Eric to have his part planned. It wasn’t like they had fancy invitations to send out or floral arrangements or place settings to approve. 

Two weeks later, one week before thanksgiving, was the day of their wedding. They were getting married in Bailey’s and the reception would be there too. Bill was in the side room in his suit, waiting for things to start as he paced and Jimmy was chuckling at him. “What the hell am I doing?” Bill asked no one in particular. “This is stupid. This is insane. I can’t get married.” 

When Jimmy noticed that Bill was about to run he finally stopped laughing and stepped in grabbing Bill’s shoulders. “Hey. Relax.”

Bill’s breathing sped up as he shook his head. “No, this is crazy. It’s not going to work. I’m going to go out there and Jake will be gone and everyone will laugh at me…”

Jimmy gave him a little shake. “Come on, Bill. You know better than that. Jake loves you. There isn’t a chance in hell that he bails.” Bill didn’t look convinced so Jimmy said, “I’ll tell you what. If you promise to stay put, I will go check on him, just to settle your mind okay?” Bill nodded and continued pacing as Jimmy slipped out of the room. He grabbed the first person he saw bustling around getting things ready and said, “Hey, would you guard this door till I get back?” 

Mimi bounced the baby as she laughed. “Got a runner do we?” Jimmy laughed along with her and nodded as he slipped off upstairs to where Jake was getting ready and he knocked on the door. 

Stanley cracked the door and peeked out before opening it all the way when he saw Jimmy. “Hey Jimmy. What’s up?” 

Jake was doing his own pacing and spun around wide-eyed and worried when Stanley said Jimmy’s name. “He changed his mind didn’t he?” 

Jimmy laughed again. “You are both insane. He’s down there freaking out because he thinks you’re going to bail.”

Jake chuckled and forced himself to relax a bit. He supposed he was being rather ridiculous. “Tell him not a chance in hell.” 

Jimmy grinned and nodded before heading back downstairs to reassure Bill, thanking Mimi before he went back in. “He’s still here and says there’s not a chance in hell of him bailing, but he’s worried that you will.” 

Bill shook his head. “As long as he’s in, I am.”

It seemed like forever before they were being called out to take their places. They weren’t doing a big processional. Just walking out. There wouldn’t be any music until the ceremony was over and the reception was starting. Bill’s eyes widened when he went out there. Was the entire town here? It sure seemed like it. Before he could get too antsy again, he saw Jake giving him that lop-sided grin and relaxed, taking Jake’s hands in his. 

Eric started off with a nice speech about finding happiness even in the worst of times and how finding yourself is a journey before he led them through the standard vows, exchanging the rings, and when he said, “I now pronounce you married. You may kiss,” Bill grabbed Jake and yanked him in for a hard kiss, to cheers and catcalls from the whole audience. The kiss hadn’t even ended yet when Mary started the jukebox and got the party started. 

Will was among the first to congratulate them after family and closest friends and they had a perfect evening and even had a few days off from the station after, barring emergencies of course. Days off were an extremely rare thing these days, but other people had promised to pick up the slack for a few days. Needless to say they hardly got out of bed until they had to go back to work, shiny new wedding rings in place.


End file.
